cradle my heart (and i'll follow you home)
by sarsaparillia
Summary: There is a new Commander in Haven. — templar!au part ii; Alistair/Bethany.
1. prologue: a perfect year

**disclaimer** : disclaimed.  
 **dedication** : to the usual suspects: sid, jupiter, kauri. love y'all.  
 **notes** : i'm never going to escape this ship.  
 **notes2** : i got a new job and i'm too busy to write fanfiction but HERE WE ARE

 **chapter title** : a perfect year  
 **summary** : There is a new Commander in Haven. — templar!au part ii; Alistair/Bethany.

—

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.

.

.

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It is very strange to be back in Ferelden.

Haven's air bites cold against Bethany's cheeks. The Frostbacks are the spine of the world, pitiless eldritch spikes that run shatterglass into the sky. They are unlike any set of mountains that Bethany has ever seen, and looking at them takes her breath away.

They tear through the sky, reaching upwards for the Beyond.

And it's easier to stare at the mountains than it is to think about everything that brought them here. The mountains are ancient and endless, unaware of conflict, unaware of strife. They exist as they always have, since the very beginning of the world. Older than time, deeper than the sea; they're outside of the salt and rust that long ago she claimed as part of herself. They're colourless, flat grey veiled in white, and they don't remind her at all of the City of Chains.

Bethany Hawke misses Kirkwall.

She hadn't even thought she could.

—

A memory, coloured silver-shard sepia:

"Well," she exhales. "That's it, then. She's gone."

"…Are you alright?"

"I will be," Bethany Hawke murmurs, and wraps her arms around herself in the early morning sunlight pouring in through the window. She leans her forehead against her husband's collarbone. "I just—I just didn't think it was going to be this hard?"

"She is your sister," Alistair says.

"I know," she nods against him. "And she even said goodbye this time! She never says goodbye."

"You don't need to pretend not to be upset, Beth," he says, gentle as feathers. Alistair moves in closer, gathering her up and tucking her in and humming something quiet and careful in the back of his throat.

"That's the problem," Bethany tells his chest. Counts the beats of his heart. Breathes. "I'm not pretending."

Alistair sighs into her curls, a full-body exhalation. It's something that takes everything out of him, and it settles into all of Bethany's empty nooks and crannies. She lets it buoy her, just lets him hold her because they fit like this, together, and it feels nice.

"How were the Gallows?" she asks, eventually, when she finally feels a little more like a person and a little less like a cracked heart. "Are your recruits—"

"They're not _my_ recruits," Alistair cuts in mildly, even though this is a _lie_ and they both know it. Ser Cullen isn't much for running a religious order, as it turns out. He was half-drowned in paperwork the last time Bethany had seen him, and she doesn't think it's gotten better yet; Alistair trains the recruits. They are very, very young.

(Everyone, that is. So young, recruits and teachers, all at once.)

Bethany rolls her eyes so loudly that she's sure Alistair can hear it. "Are _the_ recruits doing better?"

"Nope," Alistair says, cheerful. "I've never met a more useless group of people in my life!"

"Alistair, that's—!"

He laughs. It bubbles over her, and it's funny because Alistair stopped laughing about the Gallows a long time ago. He'd never laughed about the Gallows, actually, not really. But he laughs, now, here in the Hawke estate's foyer, and it's the most beautiful thing Bethany has ever heard. It shouldn't make her flush with affection all over, but it does.

"I know, I'm terrible," Alistair agrees sagely. He dips his head to grin into her cheekbone. "I never said I wasn't."

Bethany giggles a little helplessly. Her husband. Even when he's not a templar anymore, he's still a templar. At least he's got a sense of humour about it.

"What am I going to do with you?" she asks him.

"Survive despite me, I suppose," he hums. He follows the lines of her bones with an idle curiosity, fingers light. Over her nose, down her throat, hips, hands. Everywhere, everywhere.

Bethany shivers. "I suppose."

"I missed you," Alistair says. It sounds like he's talking to himself. "Why do I always miss you when I'm gone?"

"Because you love me," Bethany reminds him.

"That's true, I do," Alistair agrees. He brushes her curls out of her face, smiles just a very little bit as he rubs his thumb along her cheekbone. "You're still as pretty as you were that day in the Chantry. Prettier."

Bethany leans into it, closes her eyes. Alistair's skin is warm, and it's so good, _so good_ because it's just the two of them, and there's nothing to ruin it.

Except everything, that is. Bethany takes a breath.

"…Did you talk to Ser Cullen, today?"

The line of Alistair's mouth dips into a frown, and hardens. "No."

Bethany just nods. She can't force a détente between them; she can't force Alistair to forgive Ser Cullen any more than she can force her mother to stop antagonizing the Divine, or any more than she could ever have stopped Marian from being Marian.

"You still think I should," he translates her silence. Alistair makes a little noise of frustration at the back of his throat, some cross of incredulous laughter and disbelieving snort. "Beth. Come on."

"You don't have to," Bethany says. Her voice is steady, despite herself. "I just think you should."

Alistair snorts again, louder this time. "Why? Why should I? He's had enough time to get his head on straight. It wasn't that hard, Beth, _I_ managed it!"

"But you had me," Bethany says, so softly. She tilts her head to look him in the eye, his hand still cupped around her cheek. "You had _me_ , Alistair, you had a _reason_ —"

"It doesn't matter." Alistair doesn't raise his voice. He does not snap, he hardly ever gets truly angry He does not snap nor raise his voice nor get angry right now, either. But there is steel in his posture, slick and sharp in his shoulders, and all of those hard lines to his mouth get harder.

Bethany lets out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She slips her arms around him, presses her cheek to his chest. For a minute, she listens to the beat of his heart. The steady pound of it settles her down, helps her find the right words.

"You just seem so lonely," she whispers.

"And _you're_ clearly feeling better," Alistair says, grinning, but there's still something shadowed in his eyes. This fight isn't over, for all that it's not really a fight. Friendship is hard. Trust is harder. Love is hardest of all. "See? We've got so many other things to worry about."

"Don't remind me," Bethany says. "But I—I do think you should talk to him."

"I know you do," Alistair says. "But I can't, Beth. Please don't ask me to."

She looks up at him for a long moment. The world passes away between them.

"Alright," Bethany says, at last. "I won't."

And it's not a lie. She won't ask him to, because there is nothing in the world that Alistair wouldn't do, not if she asked it of him. It twists all of her guts up, sometimes, the way that he's so willing to cut himself open for her. Bethany thinks of Lothering, and of the foundries, and of the Wounded Coast. She thinks of their children, and her sister, and the city in flames. She thinks of the slums, and of the Hanged Man, and of the Gallows.

She thinks of the templars.

No, Bethany decides, she won't ask.

Not yet.

—

There's snow this high up.

Bethany isn't sure why she's so surprised by it. The Frostbacks have their name for a reason, and they carry it with all the icy grace that Bethany herself never quite got the hang of. Liana and Carina have been running around the entire morning, trying to shove it down each other's collars every chance they chance.

They are going to be _such_ a terror when they get older.

But for now, they've melted into the faceless gaggle of Haven's children, just two more open mouths on a many-headed monster. They shriek with laughter, the sound bouncing away into the clear blue sky. It's not a bad idea that they make friends while they can. And Malcolm—

Malcolm's got one fist in his mouth and the other twined into the sway of Bethany's skirt. Her son stares out at the world with dark, wild eyes. He doesn't stop watching for a second, but he never goes very far.

"Mama," he says.

"What is it, darling?"

"Auntie Sonny."

Bethany looks to where he's pointing. There indeed is her wayward cousin; Solona has her hair pulled back from her face, pale and bloodless in the cheeks. Her hair is a stark ink-coloured stain against the white of the landscape, so stock-still she might as well be a statue. She's staring up at the mountains, face wiped clean.

She looks _so_ like Marian.

"Yes," Bethany agrees with him. "Auntie Sonny."

Malcolm nods very solemnly. He reaches up to take Bethany's hand, and tugs her imperiously forwards—she lets him lead her all the way to Solona's side, at which point he somehow manages to take Solona's hand, too. The rest of Haven's children are shrieking with glee down by the frozen lake, but Bethany's son seems content to stay here, and makes no move to dislodge himself, even when Solona blinks owlishly at them both.

"He wanted to come say hello," Bethany translates.

"Did he, now?" Solona asks, more to Mal than to Bethany.

Malcolm nods again but fast, this time, nod-nod- _nod_ , like he's trying very hard to convince Solona to _stay put_. He knows how to talk, and Bethany _knows_ that he knows how to talk, but she's beginning to think that Mal takes a very specific pleasure in forcing all the adults in his life to interpret his silences.

Solona goes soft all over.

There aren't a lot of things in the world that have the ability to turn Bethany's cousin into cloud-soft spun sugar, but her son is one of them. Solona kneels down in the snow, the _crunch-crunch_ of it loud in the ears, but she looks Malcolm in the face when she talks to him.

"One day, you're going to have to tell me that yourself," Solona says.

"Do I gotta?" Mal asks, voice small. Bethany blinks down at him. Look at her son, answering questions of his own volition. The world _is_ changing, isn't it.

"You have to ask for the things you want," Solona tells him. There's a strange lilt to her voice, something that says that these words come from personal experience. "If you don't, no one will know you want them."

Malcolm considers this for a long time, little face furrowed up. "What do _you_ want, Aunt Sonny?"

"I don't know," says Solona.

"S'okay," Mal says. "Auntie Nerry's not gone forever."

Solona makes a tiny choked-off noise in the back of her throat, a sound that feels like pain, and Bethany aches in her chest. Andraste, but her son always does seem to see the things that people want to keep hidden from themselves. Worse, he's too little to know when the knots in someone's soul are there as protective netting and not little pearls to be shaken about. There are so many things about her cousin that her cousin keeps to herself, but her knots are netting to keep herself in one piece. Bethany knows that much.

Solona bends forward to kiss Malcolm on the top of his head. "I guess you're right."

Bethany's son nods very seriously, and waits graciously until Solona is standing again.

And then he tugs on Bethany's sleeve.

"Yes," Bethany answers the unspoken query. Well, there goes that. Still, it's progress. Some days, Mal won't even talk to her and Alistair. Some days, he won't even talk to the _twins_. Talking to Solona might have used up his quota for the day, and that's alright. "You can go find your sisters."

Malcolm hugs her leg and scampers, like she'll take the permission back. As though she would even if she could.

There are so many things in the world that Bethany would take back, but her children are not one of them.

And so Bethany surveys Haven, bright in the mid-morning sunlight. She inhales freezing air, the bite so sharp in her lungs that it stings, prickles all the way through, stuffs up her nose and has her shivering. The Conclave is tomorrow, but she wishes it were warmer. Standing out here in the cold doesn't help anyone. She looks at her cousin out of the corner of her eye, and wonders just where in the Maker name's her sister is.

"…Do you think this will work?" Bethany asks, at last.

"No," says Solona.

Bethany doesn't ask how Solona knows what she's on about, because of course her cousin knows. She watches the way Solona's hands shake, fist tight into her skirt, forced to stop the tremble even as her knuckles are clenched so hard they're white. Her cousin wouldn't expect the Conclave to come to anything, would she? What reason does she have to expect any different? In the end, it is still the Chantry.

"We have to try," Bethany reminds her cousin softly. "It's not like we have much choice."

And they don't. They have no choices, and especially no good choices at all. The Divine's Conclave is a chance for _peace_ , and both Bethany and Alistair acknowledge this, which is why they're here in the first place. Beyond Seeker Pentaghast and Varric and Mother, they're here because there's no good choices, and what else is there to do?

"I know," Solona exhales. "But I wish—"

"That Nerry were here?"

"Yes."

But there is a very good reason that they're here in Haven alone. Neria Surana helped blow Kirkwall's Chantry to pieces, and she hasn't apologized yet. Bethany doesn't think she's going to, either. And for that matter, it's probably a moot point regardless: this isn't something that an apology can fix. And it's not because it was just the explosion itself.

The Mage-Templar War was coming whether they wanted it to or not.

A year and a half into the bloodshed, this Conclave is their only hope.

(It's a wish, and Bethany could really use a wish right now.)

Bethany leans very slightly into Solona's space, just a brush of arm against arm. She doesn't move away even when her cousin startles, and for a moment, they're just two women at the end of the world, trying to pick up the pieces. It's harder without Marian between them, because even now, even after all this time, there is no one in the world who can force change the way Bethany's older sister can.

But maybe that's why they're here in the first place.

Trying to fill the hole.

When Solona exhales, there are a lot of unsaid things in the breath. She tucks her arm into Bethany's, hooks their elbows. Apologies don't always have to be said aloud, and this is one such thing. "Should we go find your husband?"

"Yes," Bethany says. "Let's."

—

A memory, coloured afternoon lavender:

"Oh, Creators, I don't think this is a good idea."

"Do _you_ want to tell my mother she can't have the broken cursed mirror for her students to study?"

"No, not really," says Merrill, glancing the mirror over out of the corner of her eye. It stands perfectly motionless in the gloom of the back corner, and until five minutes ago, it had been covered in a sheet.

That was the way that Bethany had liked it. It gives her the creeps.

"Neither do I," says Bethany, grim. She can feel the Force magic glittering beneath her skin. She wonders where her children are, today. "But either one of does it, or do as we've been told and bring it to her."

"Must we?"

"It's your mirror, Merrill. I'm here to help."

"Mirror- _frame_ ," Merrill shakes a little as she stresses the word. "There's not much mirror left. You know that, you were there when I shattered it!"

"I know, but it's better than leaving it here," Bethany says, and determinedly doesn't look at the few remaining shards that cling to the mirror's frame. They never reflected anything worth seeing, anyway. She bumps Merrill's hip, in solidarity and in old friendship. The easy kind of thing that comes with knowledge that you've seen a person at their worst, and still come out of it the other side alright.

Merrill bites at her lip. her hands skittering over the twisted frame. "You're right, I know you're right," but there's something so awfully melancholy to the way she lingers. "I just—I spent so much time trying t'fix it, and then the Keeper…"

"I'll help you look for another, if you want. One that isn't…"

"Tainted?" Merrill supplies.

"I was going to say possessed," Bethany says, softly, like an apology.

But Tainted works, too. Bethany knows what this mirror means to Merrill, and she knows what it will cost her friend to give it up. But this shattered old thing keeps her tied to the past in the worst way. And this is Mother's doing, truly—Mother, more than anyone, thinks that Merrill needs to move on and find something else to live for.

(Mother doesn't know about Fenris, which may be part of it.)

And Bethany has no doubt that Merrill will find it eventually.

It just might take a while.

Because it's not as though Bethany doesn't _understand_. The elven ruins scattered across the world are many, and what's left of them speaks of a civilization so brilliant with magic that it likely used little else. And they've lost so much. There will be other mirrors, Bethany's sure; if _this_ particular mirror hadn't been such a problem, and hadn't involved a demon and too much blood magic to bear thinking about, Bethany might have even helped.

That's what you do for friends, Bethany's learned. You help when you can, even if you don't particularly approve of the way they're going about it.

"I don't know if there's any more left," Merrill says, wistful. She touches the cold otherworld metal with gentle fingers. "The stories don't—they're not clear?"

"Merrill," Bethany says.

"Yes?"

"This one… your clan found it? In the middle of nowhere?"

"Tamlen and Lyna found it in the Brecilian forest," Merrill says. Bethany watches the way the words gut her friend. She'd not wanted to admit them. "And then—and then I took it."

Bethany knows how the rest of this particular story goes. The two elves had found it and then they'd both eventually died or disappeared; Lyna first, and then Tamlen later. Merrill had told her the story once, a long time ago, walking along the edge of the Waking Sea. It had been a very quiet story. A sad one, too, all the worse for being true.

"But that's where elven ruins _are_ ," Bethany says. It's hard to get at what she's trying to get at. Maybe she doesn't have the right words. Maybe Merrill does. "In the middle of nowhere."

"Old places," Merrill says, nods. "Wild places."

"Those places still exist, you know."

"I know, but…"

 _It won't be the same_. It hangs in the air between them, blooming violet-purple as a bruise. What hasn't Merrill sacrificed for this mirror, Bethany wonders. What hasn't she given up, what hasn't she lost. Even Marian's gone and left Merrill alone.

And she's not wrong.

It _won't_ be the same.

But maybe that's alright.

Together, Bethany and Merrill stare at the broken mirror for a long time, the air quiet between them. The world filters in from outside, salt and sweet and sour on the alienage breezes, all blue and pink and sickly yellow-green. Things colour up so well, out here.

"Do you regret it?"

"I'm s'posed to, I think?"

"But do you?"

"Oh," says Merrill. She leans her head against Bethany's shoulder, closes her eyes. It aches like a bruise; the awful way she inhales like she's chewing on broken glass. There's a lot of that going around, these days. Bethany takes her weight. "No. I don't."

—

The evening sun sinks beyond the mountain range to plunge the world into darkness.

Inside, Bethany lights a candle. And then she lights another, and then another and another, and another and another and another until the entire cabin is bathed in that contented golden glow. The twins have piled into the trundle in the corner with Mal tucked between. They tired themselves out today, running around, and Bethany catches herself smiling at them a little helplessly.

Andraste, she doesn't know what to _do_ with how much she loves them.

But she tamps it down. Now isn't really the time to sort out what it means to be a parent. The Conclave begins tomorrow, and all of Haven is on edge with it. She can't be useful—only the leaders of the mage rebellion and the templar Knight-Commanders can do something, now, with the Divine to mediate—and so perhaps it's better to keep her family together while she can.

There's just no telling what's going to happen next. And Alistair—

Alistair blows in through the front door on a gust of cold winter air sprinkled through with snowflakes, and she forgets what she'd been on about.

"Hello there," Bethany rises from where she's been sitting at the table to smile at him. "Decided to come back, have you?"

He smells like leather and skin, and that peculiar scent that clings when it's frigid outside, bitter like old metal. It curls around her, the echoing ancient halls of her heart ringing with it. Here is her husband, for all that he's never really been away.

Bethany shivers.

Tilts her head up to be kissed.

"If I have to break up one more fight between two grown men who should know better, I'm going to quit," Alistair says, darkly, and has the gall to only kiss the top of her head. There's ice frozen in his scruff. "Seeker Pentaghast can find someone _else_ to fight her war."

"She _did_ ask Ser Cullen first," Bethany reminds him. "You do remember that, don't you? You told her _no_ , Alistair."

(She takes his cloak from him before he has a chance to protest; the ram wool around the edges needs to dry by the fire. He'll catch his death if it doesn't, and then she'll have to break all sorts of holy laws to bring him back. Bethany hadn't been planning on necromancy, today. Or any day, really. The soft-headed idiot.)

"He's more useless than I am," Alistair grumbles. "He made a mess of the Gallows, I wasn't going to let him muck this up, too."

"Are you trying to convince me, or you?" Bethany asks him, softly, the corner of her mouth pulling up. "Because it doesn't really sound like you're talking to me."

Alistair huffs irritation. "Don't start, love, it was a very long day."

"Was it that bad?" she asks.

"…Never as bad as the Gallows," he amends. His jerkin comes off, and then the doublet, and then the undershirt and finally he's shed the outer layers of his clothes at last. Alistair comes over to put his arms around her in nothing but a threadbare shirt and breeches, and nips at her ear.

Bethany squirms away. "Quit it!"

"Nah, don't want to," he grins. " _Someone's_ ticklish."

"I am not, I'm—!"

He nips again, and Bethany squeaks. "You're going to wake the twins up!"

"If you don't keep it down, technically _you're_ the one who's going to wake them up—"

"You're being terrible again," she tells him frankly.

"Yes, I thought we'd been over this," Alistair says, and proceeds to rub his scruff over her entire face. He's grinning widely when he comes up for air, absolutely unrepentant. "I am entirely terrible when it comes to you."

"Because that's news to me," Bethany says. Sighs. This _man_. "Will you stop talking and kiss me already?"

"That's what I was trying to do, Beth."

Her jaw drops. "Liar, you were not trying to kiss me. You were trying to make me screech and wake half the village up!"

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"You—ugh!" She shakes her head at him, mouth open. She is not charmed. She is not charmed! This _man_! He is not charming! "One of these days you're going to get it, Alistair, did you know that?"

Alistair muffles his laughter into her lips, ducking down sweet and easy to finally, finally kiss her on the mouth. Bethany winds her hands into the neckline of his stupid threadbare shirt, keeps him close. Everything inside of her goes very still the way it always does when Alistair kisses her. And some forgotten drop of magic deep inside of her chest ripples and blooms, murmurs _you're here_ and _yes_ and _mine_.

"Happy, my lady?" Alistair asks when he pulls away, voice catching with faint breathlessness.

"No, not at all," Bethany says. Her hands tighten in his shirt. If he's breathless, she's not much better. "Do it again."

"Do I have a choice?"

"Do you _need_ a choice?"

"She makes a decent point," Alistair says under his breath, more to himself than to her. His pupils swallow up the firelight, so wide that there's only a thin ring of honey-brown iris left, and his hands hover a hairsbreadth above her hips. "She makes a very decent point."

"Alistair," Bethany says.

"Yes, dear?"

"I'd like to be kissed, now."

Alistair laughs soft and low as bedroom eyes, and obliges her.

—

A memory, coloured arterial crimson:

Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast has no business in Kirkwall.

Or at least, she has no business in Kirkwall that could conceivably bring her to the ancestral halls of the Amell Estate, and _certainly_ none as would have her sitting stiffly in Bethany's mother's solar, pointedly ignoring the pleasantries of a high tea. Bethany blinks, mystified. What on earth has her mother done to bring a _Seeker_ down on their heads? Has she finally done something to offend the Divine's sensibilities so badly? No Exalted March with all the Circles in revolt, but instead a Seeker?

Honestly, Bethany can't decide which option is worse.

Currently, it's leaning towards _this one_.

"Mother? Is everything alright?"

"Oh, there you are, darling," Leandra Hawke says, so easily. She sits with her hands folded in her lap. Dressed in muted purples and heather greys, she looks for all the world like someone who hasn't ever threatened to fight the world's religious leader on a whim and a prayer. "We have a visitor!"

Bethany, however, knows better. _I can see that, Mother_ , she doesn't say, even though she wants to.

"Good afternoon," Bethany says, instead. Caution threads its way through her voice, pickling up in Kirkwall's brine and rust. She's not her sister, and she's not her mother, and she has three very small children to think about. "I don't believe we've met?"

The Seeker clears her throat, straightens in her chair. She holds herself the way a warrior does, square, rooted to the spot so nothing could move her even if it tried. Aveline holds herself the same way, Bethany thinks.

"I am Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast, and I am here to speak to the Champion of Kirkwall."

"I… see," says Bethany. She takes a breath in, for fortification. "I'm sorry, but I don't think we can help you. My sister isn't here. She's been gone for weeks."

"What? Where?"

"I don't know," says Bethany. Her lips twist. "She hasn't told us."

"But you heard from her?" demands the Seeker. "I must speak with her, it cannot wait!"

Bethany can _feel_ the thinning of her mother's lips. The Seeker does not bother with games; Bethany appreciates it, but she knows that her mother does not. This directness is not the way things are done, in Kirkwall.

But then, what does it matter, how things are done? Better, how things _used_ to be done. The whole world has imploded, fallen to pieces, gone up in flames to nothing but smoke and ash on the breeze from a funeral pyre.

It's all so _pointless_.

Marian Hawke is gone.

"We haven't heard from her. Not since she left," says Bethany, and this isn't even a lie. One would think that the Cahmpion of Kirkwall would be less terrible at letter-writing, but Bethany also knows that her sister hates to leave even the smallest trail of crumbs to follow. Marian won't be found until she wants to be, and not a second before. "May I ask why you want to know?"

The Seeker makes a frustrated sound at the back of her throat. "I—cannot say."

"Then you should not be surprised that we are not forthcoming, Seeker," Mother says, before Bethany can even open her mouth. The Hawke matriarch watches the proceedings with cool blue eyes, face devoid of emotion except for a strange hard line at her mouth. "You may tell the Divine that I still do not concede my point."

"Most Holy—"

"Sent you," Mother cuts the Seeker off with very little ceremony. "I am aware."

"Madame Hawke—"

"I am _also_ aware that Varric Tethras is currently enjoying the hospitality of the Viscount's dungeons, on your account. I would have you return him before I allow this any further, Seeker," Mother drawls. "If you cannot treat my daughter's _friends_ with something approaching respect, why in the Maker's name would I tell you where _she_ is?"

A horrible mottled flush crawls across the Seeker's face. The woman has the decency to look _ashamed_ of herself.

Bethany swallows down horror.

It is true that she hasn't seen Varric in the last few days, but that's not unusual. He is very involved in the rebuilding efforts, or at the very least, he's very involved in _avoiding_ the deshyrs involved in the rebuilding efforts. But Andraste's filthy knickers, how does her mother _know_ these things? Who has she bribed _this_ time?

And why didn't Bethany _know_ about it?!

Mother's face has taken on that porcelain quality that it gets when she's about to verbally shred someone to pieces. She sits and waits patiently for the Seeker to stop gaping like a fish, hands still folded in her lap.

Bethany forgets that her mother can, in fact, take care of herself.

"He is not in the dungeon," the Seeker finally manages. And then quieter, under her breath, mutters, "anymore."

Mother simply waits.

(Marian was right. It is _marvelous_ to see all that passive-aggressiveness directed at someone else. Bethany can appreciate it only because she knows that the likelihood of the Seeker holding this against her is small. The Seeker does not seem the kind of woman to hold someone else's sins against a person. Or, in this case, someone else's rudeness.)

After a very long moment, the Seeker gathers herself. "I will have the dwarf released. But please—" and here, she breaks for just the tiniest fraction of a second, a frantic fear leashed tight behind her teeth, "—I must speak to the Champion."

"My daughter told you the truth," Mother says. "Marian isn't here."

The Seeker slumps just a little bit. She's a sharp creature, the Seeker; sharp line of jaw and sharp line of mouth, sharp line where the weight of a sword and shield should be. She really is very much like Aveline, Bethany thinks, but less manipulative, if that's even possible.

Cassandra Pentaghast is a battering ram, but without hands to bear it, not even a battering ram has direction.

And Bethany thinks that her mother can see this, too.

"…Go to the Gallows, Seeker," Mother says. "Speak to Ser Cullen. You may find it illuminating. If the Divine is planning what I think she's is, you may be able to get some use out of him."

"What? Mother, no, he's—!"

"You know very well that he can't keep doing what he's doing, darling," Mother cuts Bethany off. She crooks a pale eyebrow, allows her gaze to sweep over the Seeker again, a measuring up and down. "That boy won't ever be happy in Kirkwall. He's not healthy, here. He doesn't know how to be."

"But Alistair—"

"Your husband will be fine," Mother says, dryly. "He does keep insisting that he's not bothered, doesn't he?"

"I—" and Bethany wants to say that _no_ , it's not alright, and that Alistair _won't_ be fine. Because she knows her husband, and until he's sorted out his issues with what happened the night of the explosion, he won't be able to come to terms with Ser Cullen.

Forgiveness is very hard.

Bethany knows that better than anyone.

And so she exhales, and lets the fight slip away. Mother isn't wrong. It would do Ser Cullen some good to be away from the City of Chains.

"That's what I thought," says Mother. She returns her attention to the Seeker. "Now that that's cleared up, Varric?"

"He must tell the Divine what has happened. He is the only one who—the only one who knows what truly happened, he must—"

"This is not a suggestion, Seeker," Mother says. "You will return Varric unharmed, and you will do it now. Today."

"…Yes, Madame Hawke."

"Lovely," says Mother. "You will be returning for supper?"

"I should not—"

"That was _also_ not a suggestion, Seeker," Mother says, kind. "You _will_ be returning for supper. And afterwards, you may go speak to Ser Cullen. Yes?"

(Bethany really has to stop wondering why Marian is the way she is. Of _course_ her sister is the way she is, look at where she came from! It'll be half a miracle if one of the twins doesn't end up exactly the same, or even worse, _Malcolm_. Andraste, please, no. One Marian is enough. Two Marians would be too many. _Especially_ a Marian with magic. That's just asking for trouble.)

"Yes, Madame Hawke," sighs the Seeker. She doesn't look pleased about any of this. Cassandra Pentaghast is not the sort used to being bowled over by an old woman, especially not an old woman with no apparent weapons at her disposal.

Bethany can't say she blames her. The older Mother gets, the worse she seems to be.

Maker's breath, what a day.

And so while Mother chats Seeker Pentaghast into standing and then out the door to go retrieve Varric from whatever hidey-hole she has him bolted into, Bethany rushes to the kitchen to go make sure that her children haven't found a way to set the whole estate on fire. She'll keep an eye on them like that, just like that, all the way until Alistair comes home and then she'll hide in his chest, for a while.

A few more hours.

That's all she needs.

—

The next morning, Bethany sleepily kisses her husband _goodbye_. The sun's not quite above the Frostback's peaks, quite yet; it's still so early that the Maker himself isn't alive, never mind the rest of Thedas. The twins and Mal haven't even begun to stir, yet. The sky outside the window is faint pastel pink, not even the bare beginnings of the sunrise. False dawn. She wraps herself up in one of the less-scratchy wool blankets from their bed, and clumsily manages to get out of bed.

Her husband, already awake and dressed because he has responsibilities like real people do, has the gall to chuck her under the chin.

"Be good," Alistair says, gentle as goose feathers.

"I'm always good," Bethany says, as prim as anyone can be when they're mostly asleep.

Alistair chokes on his laughter. But he bends down and presses his mouth to her forehead like a habit, anyway. "That's true, you are. I won't be home 'til dark, alright? We're down in the valley, today, so just…"

"Keep safe?" Bethany finishes. "I'll try. Are you keeping people away from the Conclave?"

"Trying to, yeah," Alistair nods, and then his face turns grumpy. "One more Maker-forsaken fight, and I swear…"

"You'll be fine," she tells him. Bethany catches his fingers, studies his palms. She finds that it's easier to stifle her own anxiety about the day if she's not quite looking him in the eye. "If we're lucky, it'll be over soon."

"We're never lucky, Beth," he says. He brushes curls out of her face, cracks an ungainly sort of smile. It's wry all the way through, pulling his face up crooked. "Darkspawn, remember?"

"This won't be half so bad," Bethany says. "The Chantry has nothing on darkspawn."

"She says."

"Aren't you supposed to be somewhere?"

"Oh, probably," Alistair murmurs. He lingers in her space for a long moment like sunlight, settling softly in her hair, and he reaches up to cup his hand around her cheek. "But I'm going to kiss you, first."

"Good," says Bethany, smilingly, allows herself to be kissed.

And later, she won't remember much more about this day. She won't remember the awful shivery hush blanketing the whole village, nor will she remember the way that Malcolm keeps crying. She won't remember how the twins only make it so far as the doorway before they turn back to crawl into Bethany's lap. She won't remember how easy it is, to stay inside. She won't remember the sun streaming brilliant in through the window, or how much it felt like a fragile hope, dashed violent against rocks.

She'll remember worrying about Alistair. But she's always worrying about Alistair. It's hard to forget.

The day goes on. It's half-noon when a shock goes through the air, a low moaning _groan_ that echoes through the very foundations. Bethany looks up from her reading, eyes wide, magic clenched tight in her fists. All her hair stands up on end, curls crick-crackling, inhaling fast and sharp. She puts herself between the outside world and her children, without even thinking about it.

The whole world is suddenly trembling.

Bethany only has time to open the door, and then—

( _Oh, Andraste, no_.)

With a horrible, end-of-the-world rumble, the sky tears open, and the Fade pours through.

—

.

.

.

.

.

 _tbc_.


	2. looking out into the cold night

**disclaimer** : disclaimed.  
 **dedication** : whaddup nerds  
 **notes** : so in the last six months i: got a new job, knitted fifteen scarves, and started dating someone. like, do you _see_ why this took so long?  
 **notes2** : you're somebody else — flora cash.

 **title** : looking out into the cold night  
 **summary** : There is a new Commander in Haven. — templar!au part ii; Alistair/Bethany.

—

.

.

.

.

.

"Well, let's not do _that_ again. _That_ was _terrible_."

"Terrible is a bit of an understatement, Alistair," Bethany says, slumping against his shoulder. Every part of her _aches_ : her limbs, her head, the leaden hole in her chest where her magic usually lives. Andraste, she doesn't think she could magic up candlelight, right now, not even if she tried. She's pitch-black, hollow, used up.

Whatever punched through the sky punched through Bethany, too.

Alistair tilts his head down to crook an eyebrow at her. "Understatement? Me? No, never."

Bethany makes a high-pitched little sound, half-mirth and half exhaustion. He _would_ , wouldn't he. "You're lucky I like you so much."

"Mmm, yes, we've been over that," Alistair says, nodding wisely. "I _am_ lucky you like me so much. You're a very good reason to finish up dealing with the demons fast as I can. The children, too."

"What?" Bethany says, startled. Something grabs tight at her throat, convulses madly, lungs gone deflated all of a sudden. Because Bethany knows her husband, and she knows how he is when he's got an idea in his head. "What are you talking about? You're not—Alistair, you're not going back out there? Are you?"

"I don't think I have much a choice, love, it was in the job description and our esteemed Seeker might have my head if I don't—"

"Demons were not in the job description! That's—have you lost your mind?! You'll get killed!"

"The sky exploded and didn't manage to kill me, Beth. I'll be fine," Alistair says, grinning like it's a joke, but when Bethany doesn't laugh—because she can't laugh, she can't find humour in this, there is a _hole in the sky_ and he's about to _go back out there_ to fight demons because he can't help himself, can he? And so, _no_ , actually, she doesn't have one single smile left inside of her—the grin falls away, and Alistair cups her cheek.

He stares at her very seriously for a very long minute.

"I'm coming back," Alistair says. It's a steely thing, quiet but incredibly final in its solidity, and even more reassuring. Metal all the way through.

Bethany lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Alright," she says, shoulders dropping. Resignation is bitter as ashes on her tongue. He always has to help, if he can. It's no small part of why she loves him, Andraste, so much of why she loves him, even, but the thought of losing him is intolerable. Bethany leans into his hand, hopes to the Maker that he understands all the things she's trying to say.

He must, because his eyes go soft and warm, sunlight catching over dry grass. "It's going to be fine, love. We've dealt with worse."

"Alistair, there is a _hole_ in the _sky_ ," Bethany says.

"And this time, your sister isn't even involved!"

Laughter bubbles to Bethany's lips, unbidden and half hysteric. Thank the Maker her sister isn't here, honestly, because Marian would manage to turn the hole in the sky into an _opportunity_ , and then she and Alistair would end up having to clean up the mess. But making light of it—

Only Alistair, _honestly_.

"That's not funny," Bethany tells him. "Alistair, stop laughing! It's not!"

"It's a little funny," Alistair says, swipes his thumb back and forth along the line of her cheekbone slow, and lets her drop forwards to collapse into him just a smidge. Bethany hides her face in his collarbone so that she doesn't have to look him in the eye. "Admit it, it is."

The steady pound of his heartbeat thunders all through her, and she closes her eyes.

( _Oh, my love_.)

"I'm not answering that," Bethany says, quashing down the tears that slosh behind her eyes. They've not the time to cry.

"Nor should you," Alistair agrees, sagely. His arms come up around her, anchor her back to the ground. Bethany is unspeakably grateful for this; Alistair always makes things make sense, even when he's planning to leave. And he's careful with her because right now she's a shattered creature, barely holding on, and they both know it.

Andraste, but she needs him more than anybody else.

"Don't die," Bethany whispers shakily. Her fingers curl tight into his shirt, but she manages to keep the sob wobbling in her chest down. "Please, Alistair. Please don't do that to me."

"I won't," Alistair murmurs into her curls.

 _You wouldn't be able to stop it_ , she wants to cry. No one would be able to stop it, no one would be able to keep it from happening if it were meant to happen. People are _dying_ ; the valley is full up with death and bloodied snow refracting brilliant in the sick light of the Breach above them. There's no one to make the world still the way it ought to be. No one's coming, and no one's going to keep an eye on his back. If the Maker wills her husband dead, then dead he will be. The Conclave is gone. What else is there?

Still:

Bethany unclenches her fists.

And Alistair goes.

—

The Herald of Andraste is an elf.

Better, she is an elven _mage_.

(The irony is not lost on anyone.)

"No matter how long you stare at it, Sunshine, it ain't going away."

Bethany pulls her robes tighter around her frame, and glances down at Varric. There are ugly dark smears behind his eyes, washed out eerie yellow-green in the light of the sun through the Breach. He looks like he hasn't slept in a week. Maybe he hasn't. Bethany certainly can't remember the last time she had a good night's rest; she can't imagine that her older sister's oldest friend is much better about it.

Having him here is a comfort, though. Varric carries Kirkwall in everything he does. It's in the bright red of his shirt, the well-cut leather of his overcoat, even in the way he stands. He carries the bitter and the brine of the Waking Sea like he doesn't even know he's doing it.

It's a little of home, out here in the wilderness.

"At least it's not spitting demons, anymore," Bethany says.

"Can't guarantee it won't start up again," Varric says, grim. He surveys the white wilderness, the jagged line of the Frostbacks biting into the sky. "Shit. Remind me why we're here?"

"Because my husband decided to humour Lady Cassandra, and because you didn't really have any choice," Bethany reminds him. _Because I'd never have let him go on his own, and you thought to write it all down_.

"Too on-the-nose, Sunshine. Let a man have his dignity!"

"Sorry, Varric," Bethany laughs, but she's not really that sorry.

It's very quiet between them for a moment. Bethany wants to say _I miss her, too_ , because her sister is never very far from anyone's thoughts, but especially not from Varric's, and that's been truer than she wants to think about recently. Being here, out in the mountains and the cold and the wind whipping the snow from the peaks in shimmering white veils—it's harder not to think about the Champion of Kirkwall, harder not to miss her. Harder not to miss the city. Harder not to miss Mother. Harder.

Varric exhales heavily through his nose. Bethany watches the change in his face, the way he so obviously decides that it's time to talk about something else, and she lets it go.

It's better that way.

"So," Varric says, conversationally. "Is Death Wish talking to Curly again?"

"Why do you call him that?"

"Because your husband's got a death wish and it suits him," Varric says patiently, as though he's explaining something very simple to a very small child. He pats her elbow gently. "C'mon, Sunshine, we've been over this."

"He doesn't," Bethany says mutinously.

"He kinda does, though—"

She ignores him. Alistair _does not_ have a death wish, no matter _how_ much of his time he's spending throwing himself at demons. "No, to answer your question, I don't think he is. He hasn't—I don't think he's forgiven Ser Cullen, yet."

Varric just nods. "Can't say I blame him. Curly shoulda known better."

Bethany just sighs. Maybe they _all_ should have known better. But they'd been young and brash and unafraid, set alight with holy vengeance and the certainty that they'd been in the _right_. She and Alistair, building homes in one another. Marian and her friends, building up their dead ends and shaping the world. The templars, building an empire of rickety wood, begging to go up in flames.

And in the end, it had all fractured, and been buried in brilliant fire.

Ser Cullen had just been a little behind the learning curve.

"I—"

"Sunshine," Varric says, and it's still gentle, but now there's an awful tenderness to it. Like he always knew this was coming. "Sometimes you gotta accept that you can't save everyone."

"I wasn't trying to," Bethany murmurs. She's not Marian; she doesn't try to save everyone. She never has, after all. Maybe it's a little bit selfish, but sometimes Bethany can't care about anyone else except the people she already loves.

The problem is that so many of the people she loves have so little regard for their own safety.

Of course, Ser Cullen straddles that line.

Varric crooks an eyebrow at her. Bethany only catches sight of it out of the corner of her eye, but it knocks all the breath out of her lungs. Her older sister is there in the familiar lines of Varric's face, an old glint of mischief like an echo. It's better that Marian's not here, because Marian would only cause chaos, but it's—it's hard. Family is hard. Being away is harder.

"Nothing makes sense anymore, Varric," Bethany says. Her palms contract in the fabric of her robes. Nothing makes sense, and the haziness of Fadelight only exacerbates the unreality of it. She wants Alistair, and she wants her children, and she just wants her family to be together again.

"Nothing ever made sense ever, kid."

Bethany huffs a snort of laughter.

Well, he's not _wrong_.

Beth leans against him a little, bumping her hip against his shoulder. There's old familiarity to it, old comfort, and she catches the barest hint of gratitude when he smiles. She thinks that of all people, Varric understands what it is to be helpless, especially in the face of something too big for words. Varric understands helplessness, because Varric understands tragedy.

Andraste, but Bethany thinks that Varric understands tragedy better than anyone.

(Varric tells stories, after all.)

"I think this is a little above our pay grade, though," Bethany says, looking back to the Breach. It shifts circles in the sky, a tornado in slow motion. Staring into it for too long brings back the awful stomach bubble of seasickness. "Mine, at least. Alistair's, too."

"Shit, Sunshine, was that humour? You found a sense of humour! I gotta tell Hawke, she's gonna cry, we never thought it was gonna happen."

"Oh, shut up," Bethany's mouth quirks upwards. "And don't tell her, she'll never let me live it down."

"…I don't think I'll be telling her anything, actually."

"Hm? Why?"

Varric rubs a hand over his face. It's a move uncharacteristic of him, jerky, _guilty_. "I'm not gonna lie to you, Sunshine. I know where Hawke is. But I can't—the Seeker'd kill me. I told her I couldn't get in touch."

Oh, Bethany bets Marian just _loved_ that.

"Lady Cassandra wouldn't—" she starts.

"She would," Varric says, grim again, and precisely the kind of final that comes from already having had this conversation. "She really would."

"She hasn't asked me about it," Bethany says.

"And she won't, She knows—" Varric stops, shakes his head. It's just so tired, like he doesn't know what he's saying, anymore. "The Seeker knows that you weren't—you're Hawke's sister, Sunshine, but we kept you away from the worst of it. We tried, at least. And she knows that."

"Why?" Bethany asks, though she privately thinks that Varric might be wrong. Marian used to drag her out to all sorts of things, and she can't imagine what they might have got up to if the nonsense Bethany herself had been involved in _wasn't_ the worst of it.

"'Cause Hawke loves you, but you didn't have a choice."

Bethany blinks. "I'm sorry?"

Varric heaves a sigh. "The rest of us—we picked Hawke, you know? And we kept picking her. But you and Death Wish? You just picked each other, and you got dragged along for the ride. Hawke was always… aware, of that."

Bethany blinks down at Varric, and finds that he's very carefully not looking at her. There's an apology in it, maybe, something like family but sharp—all the bitterherb truths that no one ever really wants to say seem to hover about his shoulders. They hang there like shadows, all the dead gruesome things that no one ever really wants to admit, and they linger for far too long.

It makes her think of Carver, and then it makes her hurt.

"I know," Bethany says, at last, after the moment has stretched too long, turned sticky and thin like taffy. Her sister—yes, her sister would do something like that. "I've always known."

Varric regards her in her silence for a very long time, and then he nods.

Slowly, but he nods.

"Yeah," Bethany's old friend says. There's something that she can't entirely decipher in the waver at the end of the word, there, but she thinks it's a little bit like understanding. Maybe forgiveness. But maybe—maybe resignation, too. "Yeah, I guess you do."

Oh, _Varric_.

Bethany leans her weight against him, and the wind bites cold. She doesn't bother to say anything else, because he's already heard it, and the City of Chains echoes there, in the spaces where Marian Hawke isn't. They've all grown so old, haven't they? And how much is different, how much has stayed the same, and how all the old stories have a sepia-sleep edge, now, turned fond with nostalgia and distance.

The world has changed.

It's a testament to how long they've known one another that Varric only squints against the sun, and lets her do it.

—

"That bloody idiot's gone off the lyrium! I'm going to kill him!"

Bethany jerks her head up from her reading to stare wide-eyed at her husband. It's been rather a quiet day in Haven so far, and while she doesn't really expect anything anymore, Alistair storming into the house fit to spit fire was definitely not on the list. He slams the door behind him, closes out the rest of the world.

"What's going on?" Bethany asks, when he stops to take a breath. "Are you alright? Who's gone off the lyrium?"

"Cullen," snaps Alistair. He's blown in on an icy gush of air, and even with the door closed, now, the cold lingers. He begins to strip off his armour, frozen irritability in every movement, the _clank_ of his gauntlets coming apart so loud in her ears. "He's stopped taking the lyrium."

 _That's a death sentence_ , Bethany doesn't need to say. Alistair knows it better than anyone; for all that he'd never needed to take enough for the addiction to set in for true, she knows he watched people he considered friends fall victim to the endless thirst. Bethany silently reaches to take his cloak, searching for the right words.

"Why?" she asks, finally. "Did he say?"

"I don't know, because he's a bloody idiot?!"

"Alistair," she says, softly, and it's enough to take the wind out of his sails.

"I'm furious with him, Beth, but I don't want him dead! And that's what he's going to be, if he keeps this up," Alistair says, and there, the chestplate's finally gone and he collapses into himself, just a little. Into her, just a lot. Alistair puts his arms around her and buries his face in her hair.

"Maybe tell him that?" Bethany says into his collarbone, like a question but not.

"No," Alistair says mutinously. "I'm annoyed at him."

"It's been two years, Alistair. We're all adults, we can talk about this _like adults_."

"He tried to kill you!"

"He didn't, and you know it," Bethany reminds him, because the truth of the matter is that Ser Cullen had been too far gone to try to kill _anyone_ , much less someone he considered a friend. Bethany doesn't know what happened after they passed him by, that dark smoky night when the world had exploded, but she _does_ know that Ser Cullen had stopped what harm he could. He'd never been a cruel man.

Alistair snorts, low in his throat, quiet enough that it could be mistaken for a laugh. His arms tighten around her. "I'm still angry at him."

"You're being very silly about this, did you know."

"Yes," he says, nose still in her hair, and it's not looking like he's about to move any time soon. Bethany can't say she's opposed; her husband is warm, and there have been too many times where she wasn't sure she'd see him again to force him to let go when she doesn't have to. "I am."

Bethany doesn't say that she thinks it's childish. He knows _very well_ that it's childish.

But she lets him hold on, because there's a fine tremor to him, not unlike the one that had held them both the night of the explosion. Some things stay, and this is one of them: the Gallows kept more than mages.

It kept the templars, too.

A long slow breath escapes him, and that's how she knows he knows that she's right.

"I'm going to have to talk to him, aren't I," Alistair says.

"I think you should," Bethany says. She pauses, pulls away to look up at him. The lines of his face are so dear, crooked grin and all. Her golden man. "Ask him why he thinks going off the lyrium is a good idea?"

"…Maybe you should do that bit, love," Alistair says.

"What? Why?"

"Because I'll just yell at him again."

" _Again_?"

"Again," he says, and has the grace to look sheepish about it. Alistair sighs, looking down at her, and runs this thumb along her cheekbone. She leans into it, the old wordless call-and-reply of touch, and she can feel it settle him some. "I can't help it, he's being stupid about it. I nearly want to set your sister on him."

"She'd just encourage it," Bethany says, which is true. Her older sister never did know the meaning of restraint, and that had only gotten worse as they'd all gotten older. Marian might not be as far away as she'd assumed—given the conversation with Varric, Bethany has a sneaking suspicion that her sister is closer than she'd ever imagined—but that doesn't mean that she has any business giving _anyone_ life advice, much less Ser Cullen, who's only just finally figured out that despite the fact that they could be mirror twins, Marian Hawke and Solona Amell are two _very_ different people.

"And you won't?"

"I—" Bethany breaks off, frowns. She'd not thought there had been an alternative, but now that she actually _thinks_ about it… "I don't know."

Because the truth, now, the truth is that in the long run, the lyrium _will_ kill Ser Cullen. It takes the mind, and then it takes the body, and that's a terrible thought, isn't it? Losing one's mind? Bethany thinks that she'd rather die, first, and she can't imagine that Ser Cullen is very different.

Maybe it's a death sentence, either way.

Maybe prolonging it is _worse_.

"Beth…" Alistair murmurs, like he can see exactly what's going through her head. Maybe he can; so much of the time, Alistair knows her better than Bethany does, herself. He brushes her curls away from her forehead, frowning. "I know you don't like it, but he can't—it's not good to stop all at once. The withdrawal'll send him into shock."

"It never did for you," she says.

"I was never addicted the way Cullen is," Alistair says, grimacing.

"The way everyone else is, you mean."

"Yes."

It's something that Bethany's learned to think around, through the years; the little bottles of lyrium that Alistair hoarded to bring home, tucked far and away into the false bottom of the locked chest that they kept at the foot of their bed in the estate. And earlier, glowing blue, held up to catch the sun, the extra power never going amiss. And earlier still, Alistair's hands around hers, pressing the tiny phials into her palms like a promise. She had to learn to think around it, because if she'd not been able to, they'd all have been in trouble.

Alistair isn't beholden to the Chantry, and that's really all that matters.

The resignation slides from her shoulders. Bethany reaches up to cup her hands around his face, biting down on her lip. How could she deny him anything, when he asks for so little? "I will if you want me to."

He kisses her palm. "What would I do without you?"

"I could ask you the same," Bethany smiles. "What would _I_ do without _you_?"

Alistair chokes back a laugh, lingering so close, and very carefully bends to kiss her on the mouth.

She doesn't know how long they stand there, swaying together beneath the far-away echo of Haven's residents going about their business at the end of the day. It calls to life ghosts that Bethany had thought long laid to rest: Lowtown at sunset, the silver-grey door, the brass handle, and being able to look her neighbours in the face without flushing. The Waking Sea shining outside the window. It feels so long ago.

(Andraste, but it _was_ so long ago.)

Alistair skates his palm down her side, comes to rest against the curve of her hip. Bethany counts his breaths like she used to count his freckles, waits as he settles a little. Settles.

Finally, his breath goes out of him all in a rush. "I love you, did you know?"

Bethany tilts her head just a little, considers it. He asks her that so often, it's almost like he thinks— "I know. Do you think I'm ever going to forget it?"

"No," Alistair says, chuckles soft. The sound shivers its way down her spine. "But I do like to be sure, love. Can't have someone making off with you, can I? Especially not now, there's no dealing with demons on my own."

"No, you can't," Bethany agrees. "Demons are a bit of a problem for us, right now."

Alistair shakes his head, because frankly he still can't believe the nonsense they've stumbled themselves into, and Bethany doesn't blame him. It's funny, because the world is ending and there is a _giant hole_ in the sky, and here they are, worrying about the frayed ends of a torn friendship and being in love.

But maybe that's what being a person is all about.

So it's decided, then, that Bethany is going to be the one to talk to Ser Cullen. Alistair won't do it, but it _does_ need to be done.

It is amazing, however, how difficult it is to actually _begin_.

A day goes by, and then two, and then three. Bethany gets swept up in the twins' chattering and Malcolm's habit of coming home with bits of arcane knowledge that he has absolutely no business knowing, and she has to wonder how on the Makler's green earth he's getting into the Adan's notes. She gets caught up in kissing Alistair in the morning before he goes off to plan with Lady Cassandra, and in trying to talk Varric into telling her where, exactly, her sister and Isabela have run off to, and in writing to her mother and Merrill, and in meeting the Herald of Andraste, and in all the other things that make up her life, now, snow crunching beneath her boots, waiting for the season to change—

Suddenly, it's been a fortnight, and Bethany realizes that she needs to find the nerve to do what needs to be done. Things can't go on as they have been.

( _Oh. Waiting_.)

She breathes in Haven's bright bitter air, and goes to the practice courts.

"Do you have a moment, Ser Cullen?"

"Oh," he says, blinking against the brilliant refraction of sunlight off of snow. He's overseeing some of the Inquisition's recruits beat each other with blunted swords, and he looks exceedingly uncomfortable with all of these proceedings. "Oh, I—Lady Bethany, I—hello?"

"Hello to you, too," Bethany says, lips twitching. "Would you like come for a walk with me? Your recruits look like they're about to fall over, I think they could use a break."

"I—maybe you're right," Ser Cullen concedes. He turns to bellow something unintelligible at the recruits, and they all fall to the ground at once, puppets with cut strings. There aren't a lot of templars in the Haven, but the ones that have come are all under his command; they're all young and fresh-faced, except for the ones that Bethany recognizes from Kirkwall.

They don't greet her the way they used to, but they listen to Ser Cullen, at any rate.

(The fighting's only just started, but they're already all so tired. It's been a very long war, and it's only just begun. Bethany wonders about putting her heart between her teeth, and thinks it might be kinder.)

Ser Cullen turns to her, already swallowing hard.

Bethany realizes all of a sudden that it's not just her and Alistair and Varric who've grown. The lines beneath Ser Cullen's eyes are very deep, and they remind her of the first time she'd ever met him, when he'd only been a tall man with curly hair and smeary eyes in a long face. When she'd still been hiding, and when Kirkwall hadn't been such an open wound.

Andraste, but it's so easy to smile about it now.

"If you're looking for Alistair," Ser Cullen starts, "he's in—"

"I know where Alistair is, Ser Cullen," Bethany says, not unkindly. As though she'd not know where he was, now that the Inquisition is well into full swing, and her husband spends all of his time arguing with Lady Cassandra about how best to deploy their meagre resources. Bethany's had _more_ than enough of _that_ , thank you. She kissed him goodbye this morning, after all. "I was looking for you."

"Oh," he says. Bethany watches the way he has to clear his throat so that he doesn't croak when he next speaks. "Er. Why?"

"Because you're both being dolts, and someone has to do something about it," she says, shaking her head. Bethany sighs, gathers all her courage, and asks, "Have you really gone off the lyrium?"

The colour drains out of Ser Cullen's face. The scar across his eyebrow goes white; it's funny, Bethany doesn't remember a time he didn't have it. She'd not been wrong about the growing up, had she. "He—he wasn't supposed to tell you. I'm sorry, Lady Bethany, I haven't meant to make you worry, but—"

"We don't really have secrets, Ser Cullen," she says, gently cutting the stuttering off. "Alistair's very bad at them."

"Well, you're not wrong," Ser Cullen mutters, glances at her out of the corner of his eye. "I don't know how he kept quiet about you—"

Bethany covers her mouth to hide the smile. It warms all of her bones, how much Alistair is always himself. He really _is_ terrible at secrets, and it's just funny because everyone knows it. He couldn't keep a secret to save his whole life, but he could keep a secret to save _hers_.

"I don't know how he did it, either," she agrees. She bumps his shoulder, trying to bring him back. The Gallows consume Ser Cullen whole, pull him down into the dark. "But he did. Good thing, too, I can't imagine we'd have been able to stay married if he hadn't."

"I suppose," Ser Cullen says, swallowing hard.

"So," Bethany says, at length, after they've settled into the rhythm of walking side-by-side, snow crunching beneath their boots. "Are you going to tell me why you've gone off the lyrium?"

"You don't dance around things, do you, Lady Bethany?" he asks, a little weakly.

"No, not anymore," Bethany says, honestly, because it's long past time to dance around things.

The world's been on fire for two years. Bethany Hawke doesn't have the energy to not be direct, not now, not when she's mother to three children who've all got all sorts of ideas in their heads. Sometimes, Bethany gets flashes of understanding into why her mother is the way her mother is, and it's all to do with having children who're old enough to start doing precisely as they please, no matter what she says. There's some pretending to be alright in parenting, she's found, but there's no changing her mind about it.

Ser Cullen's shoulder's slump beneath that ridiculous mantle of his. He looks very young, all of a sudden.

"Alright, yes," he says. "I have."

"Why?"

"You were there, Lady Bethany," he says. "You saw—you _saw_. What we—what I—I couldn't stop it, all those people, I—" and then he shakes it off, and starts again. "The Gallows exploded, and I did _nothing_. Can't you see? I didn't want—I don't want anything to do with it. I don't think I ever did!"

Lyrium withdrawal has very obvious tells, when a person knows what they're looking for. Bethany finds it now in the shake to Ser Cullen's hands, the greyish tinge in the dark hallows beneath his eyes, in the awful tremble to his voice. Now that she's looking for them, they're entirely impossible to miss.

 _Oh, Ser Cullen, what have you done?_

"You're not wrong for wanting to go off it," Bethany says. "But you're doing it too fast! Look at yourself! When was the last time you _ate_?"

"Er," he hazards, "Yesterday? Or—the day before, maybe?"

"I'm going to set my mother on you," Bethany swears, shoving her curls out of her face, aghast. "Have you lost your mind? You can't just stop eating, you'll wither away!"

"I think your mother set _herself_ on me," Ser Cullen mumbles. "She keeps writing me and telling me to talk to more women, I don't know what to tell her…"

Bethany decides that maybe she'll leave _that_ can of worms alone. Ser Cullen has far too many things to sort through right now to really have the space he needs to figure out how to fall in love with someone the right way, and besides, that kind of teasing is more fun when Alistair is around.

(Alistair makes her laugh the right way. After all, he makes things funny, and she makes things sweet, and together they make things good. A decade, and that hasn't changed.)

"Ignore her," Bethany says, instead. "She raised my sister, that's usually the best way to deal with it. But you'll come for supper tonight, won't you?"

"I don't want to impose—"

"Cullen," Bethany says flatly, dropping all formalities because sometimes, that's all a person _can_ do, and Ser Cullen can be rather infuriating when he sets his mind to it. "If you try to say no, I'll send the twins to come and bother you, and then you'll get nothing done for a week."

"Please don't," he says. His eyes are wide in his face. Carina and Liana have recently discovered that destroying their father's paperwork will get them attention, and all attention is good attention, as far as the twins are concerned. It's not an idle threat.

"They miss you! You're practically their uncle!"

"I shouldn't be," Ser Cullen says, shame-faced.

"Stop that," Bethany says, brow furrowed. A pair of children go by shrieking with laughter, playing some kind of tag, and they both go still and silent. It's strange, how even though there's a hole in the sky and the entirety of the Hinterlands is on fire, life still finds a way. "We're too old to pretend that it even matters."

"What?"

"My sister started a war," Bethany tells him, completely devoid of emotion. It's nothing but the brutal, bitter truth. "And nothing any of us did could have stopped it."

"If I hadn't—"

"Not even you," she snaps, because of all things, this is one that still burns. "Don't lie to yourself! Marian—she did whatever she wanted, _whenever_ she wanted to do it! You know that! We just got caught up in it, and—ugh!"

It would be funny if it weren't quite so sad, but in this moment, Bethany isn't sure which one of them she's talking to.

(Maker, but it does feel like this is a conversation she's had with herself before.)

Ser Cullen is stunned into silence at the loss of temper. She doesn't get angry often, does Bethany. Teaching herself to keep her emotions in check was one of her oldest lessons, because with emotion came volatility and with volatility came wild magic and with wild magic came templars.

And templars, of course, came with a Circle.

But the Circles are gone, now, lost to a war, and the constellations of debris and destruction left behind taste of fear and salt. And Andraste, Bethany doesn't miss Kirkwall very much, but she misses the sea. The world could end, and she would still miss the sea.

She looks at Ser Cullen, who's still a little shell-shocked, and winces. "That's—I'm sorry," Bethany says. She pushes the hood of her cloak away so that he can see her face, like an apology. "I shouldn't have said that."

"It's alright," says Ser Cullen, though he doesn't quite look alright. He looks near as shattered as he'd done after the last conversation with Solona, the one that Bethany had never asked about and that Ser Cullen had never volunteered.

It's not alright. All of Bethany's words die gruesome in her throat.

They walk in silence for what feels like a long time.

"I'm surprised you came, you know," Ser Cullen says. They stand out on the rocky drop-off of the shore in the sun, above the frozen crests of the lake. The world edges towards evening, the sunset threatening in amber and orange across the horizon. Twilight steals across the sky, even as light spills down the mountains, fractures through the Breach. It is utterly unreal.

"You thought I'd stay in Kirkwall with Mother and the children? _Without_ Alistair?"

 _After everything?_ she doesn't say. _After the smoke and the fire and the whole burning world? After_ everything _?_

It's Ser Cullen's turn to wince. "I never said it was well thought-out."

Bethany doesn't bother to tell him that it _certainly_ was not well thought-out; Ser Cullen knows that already. He's stuck his foot in his mouth more today than most people do in a lifetime, and Bethany feels for him. It's not easy, when the words don't come out right.

But the sun is dipping, now, nighttime creeping in soft shadow fingers over the mountains. It gets dark early, here.

"You're coming for supper, Cullen," Bethany says.

"I don't think I ought to—"

"That wasn't really a suggestion?"

Ser Cullen sort of ducks down into himself, the tips of his ears flushing red. Andraste, but Bethany feels like her mother, scolding someone as needs to be scolded—does that ever stop feeling strange, she wonders, squinting against the sun? Does that ever stop feeling like she doesn't belong in her own body?

"Thank you, Lady Bethany."

"Beth," she reminds him, gentle with it.

Ser Cullen swallows hard, trying to get around the lump in his throat, so tight that Bethany can see it. It's a hard thing, realizing that people care about you; even when they're angry at you, they still care. And Bethany hasn't been angry at Ser Cullen in a long time. Even Alistair, she knows, isn't _really_ angry. He's angry at the situation, angry at the Chantry, angry at a war that was never theirs to fight. He might even be angry at her sister. He might even be angry at _her_ , although Bethany doesn't really think it's that.

(It's a lot of things, she'll find out later, but it's never been that.)

"I am sorry," he says, voice a little rough. "For—for everything, I—"

"I know," Bethany says. She reaches over to pat his arm. It feels a little like forgiveness. "I know."

—

Supper is less awkward than Bethany had expected it to be.

Alistair is only a little stiff, and only for a little while; he softens when Carina and Liana spend most of the evening pestering Ser Cullen without end, a ceaseless stream of bright-eyed questions and clambering all over that leaves everyone feeling a little looser, a little calmer, a little safer. There's nothing that will stop children from being children, is there, even after the world has ended.

Evening falls, the odds and ends of evemeal cleared away. Sunset slips in through the window in golds and oranges, fiery reds that precede twilight's purples. Bethany finds herself rocking her son back and forth, humming a wordless tune into his dark hair, and giggling helplessly at Alistair and Ser Cullen as they try to corral the twins to bed.

Ser Cullen, as it turns out, is as useless at resisting Liana and Carina's every whim as he ever had been, and they know it. They're going to be running Haven's children like the Coterie racket, if someone doesn't stop them, but it certainly won't be Ser Cullen.

"Girls, it's bedtime," Alistair reminds them. "Cullen has to be up in the morning, and so do we."

"No!" Lia pronounces, chin held high. She carries herself the way Bethany's mother does, and sometimes it startles Bethany how brilliantly the Amell blood shows. Carina nods vigorously in agreement, clinging to her twin's hand. Mouth and eyes, as they've always been. "We're not done playing yet!"

"Malcolm's asleep, Lia, I think we're all done playing," Alistair tells their oldest daughter wryly, scoops Carina up and hoists her over his shoulder so that she can't wiggle down. "And look! I have Carina!"

"Daddy, no! Put Rina _down_!"

"Nope, sorry, love. Mummy says it's bedtime!" Alistair grins, because he always does blame Bethany for bedtime. He crooks an eyebrow at Cullen, casual as anything. It's the first time all night, and it feels like a hand reached out, palm up. Like an opportunity to let the past be the past. "Grab Liana, will you? She's a handful when she wants to be."

"She's your daughter," Ser Cullen says, mildly. "You do it."

He picks Liana up, anyway

Bethany's daughter _squawks_ her indignation. "Uncle Cullen, that's not fair!"

"Sorry, Lia, but I have orders. Bedtime, miss," Ser Cullen laughs, and it's enough to erode the last of the sharpness in Alistair's eyes. Bethany breathes out, a smile hidden in the corner of her lips.

She'd forgotten how easy this was, how much like family Ser Cullen feels when it was good. She'd forgotten the late nights spent laughing, plopped in Alistair's lap and scolding Ser Cullen for his horrible crush on her older sister as his ears flushed dully, how they'd actually been friends.

It's even easier, now, with no secrets left to spoil the air.

Bethany will never know how they manage to get Lia and Rina to quiet down and fall asleep, but they do, somehow, though it takes an Age. Ser Cullen stands in the doorway for a long time, like he's relearning about belonging, but he leaves, too, eventually.

And then it's just her and Alistair, alone.

Neither one of them says anything as they ready for bed, bank the fire, his fingers catching on her hip when they pass into their bedroom like an afterthought. There's familiarity to it, and it glimmers inside Bethany's chest as they run their nightly rituals hand in hand.

It's not until they've slipped into bed and blown out the last candle that her husband finds the words.

"Thank you," Alistair says, very quietly, into the dark.

Bethany rolls towards him, tucks her hand beneath her cheek against the pillow. Alistair lays in profile, the sharp lines of his face all in shadow. She imagines counting the freckles across his shoulders, the sweep of his eyelashes against his cheekbone, the very slight movement of his chest as he breathes. Andraste, but she loves him.

"I thought you'd be angry," she murmurs.

"No." Exhale. "I was—I'm not angry, love."

She doesn't say _you spoke to him_ , even though she wants to.

"Do you feel better?" she says, instead.

Alistair is quiet for a moment, where the only movement is their mingled breaths. He seems to chew on the words for a long, long while.

"A little," he says, at last. "I'd forgotten how much he loves the twins."

"They're hard not to love," Bethany says, warm with affection and remembered awe. They'd been so little for such a long time, Carina and Liana, but it had hardly been any time at all; they're all awkward angles and unsteady colt legs, now, eightyears old and growing like weeds. Malcolm is the only one still carrying his baby fat, but Bethany can tell he won't be carrying it for long.

"They're growing up too fast," Alistair says.

"Someone's grumpy," Bethany teases, just a little. "People do that, you know."

"They shouldn't!"

"We did, remember?"

"Yes," Alistair says, sighs, very put upon. " _Well_. We were allowed."

"And our daughters aren't?"

"Not right now!"

Bethany laughs. "Silly."

"I suppose I am," Alistair hums his agreement. He reaches over to wrap an arm around her waist, tugs her close enough that they're pressed together, all of their crooks and crannies filling each other up. Bethany finds herself in the cave of her husband's chest, listening to the pound of his heart. Oh. _Oh_.

"Hello," Bethany says, tips her head up to smile at him. Her hair curls against the pillow. Even through the gloom, she can feel the warmth in his gaze.

"Hello, there," Alistair says, eyes soft. "I've missed you."

"Have you? Even though I'm right here?"

Alistair drops his chin to the top of her head, and exhales very slowly. There's a trembling thread to it that's almost too honest, but it's always easier to say the hard things in the dark. "I always miss you, Beth."

"I always miss you, too," Bethany says. Alistair's fingers walk up her spine, come up to cradle her head. She thinks of old sea shanties, songs from when she was too young to know any better, the Chasind lullabies that her father had sung so many times that she still knows the words. She thinks of Lothering, and how meeting this man had turned her whole entire world upside down, and it's not a lie, is it, that she always misses him. That they always miss each other.

Love is hard work.

But it's worth it.

Alistair raises himself up on his elbow to hover above her, gaze flickering back and forth over her face. Bethany doesn't know what he finds there, but it must be something, because he seals his mouth across hers hard and fast, and it takes her breath away.

He shocks through her veins. Like lightning.

Oh, Maker.

Love is so, so worth it.

—

The conversation went like this:

"We need healers," Alistair had said, a heavy exhalation, all aching like he doesn't really want to be saying it. "People are dying, Beth. I know how much you hate it, so I hate to ask, but—"

"It's that bad?" Bethany had asked, softly, and watched the tightening to his jaw.

"Yes."

"Alright," she'd said, and that had been that.

Some decisions, Bethany's found, are easiest made on the snap, and besides, she remembers the Crossroads. It was a tiny village, nothing more than a waystation between Lothering and Redcliffe. A place to get supplies on the road, a dry roof over a traveler's head if they were lucky, somewhere marginally safe to bed down for the night. She remembers passing through here with Father and Carver, once, and she'd picked a flower with white petals and put it in his hair. Father laughed, a great big belly of a laugh, and then lifted her onto his shoulders. She'd been that small. The memory is fuzzy-soft with fondness, even now.

But Andratse knows, the Hinterlands Crossroads are nothing like that, now.

Sunlight falls lightly on heavily-trod ground, a low moan of pain echoing as a hundred voices rise over the distant clang of weaponry and the explosion of rotted magic. The hills had been alive with it, and now they die with it, too. The road is thick with mud that smells like blood, and it sits acrid on her tongue. The Herald may be able to do a good thing here, but for right now, it's like the whole world's ended.

Bethany's breath catches in her throat. Oh, Maker, Alistair hadn't been lying, had he? People are starving, and people are hurt, and no one's _doing_ anything about it.

(It's Kirkwall all over again.)

Bethany looks up at her husband, eyes wide. She finds him looking back, mouth tight. They stare at one another beneath the Ferelden sunlight, the crisp autumn breeze painted faintly gold, and the end of the world sweet as melted sugar.

"Well," he says, "I suppose it's a good thing that Solona was willing to take the twins and Mal while we're—"

"Cleaning up my sister's mess?" Bethany supplies, because that's what they're doing, _again_.

"Yes, that," Alistair agrees, grinning faintly. He reaches over to tug on one of her curls, thick dark whorls against his skin. "You can't really blame her for this, though, love. The world's gone mad, it's not _entirely_ her fault."

Alistair's right, of course: Marian was the match, but the Circles had been tinder about to light for a very long time. So many things had culminated in Kirkwall, and it's just hard not to blame the sparks that had started the fire. Not when it's spread across the continent entire, and _people are dying_. Bethany leans into the pull of him, allows herself one second to hide in the lee of his body, to take the offered comfort. The Inquisition streams into the valley ahead of them, bringing supplies and help with them, and the Herald of Andraste looks more at home here among the bush and the trees than she has anywhere else.

"It's _mostly_ her fault."

He doesn't bother to argue with that, because it is entirely true.

It's only half a second's movement to dart forward to kiss him on the cheek. Bethany finds herself caught and held because she thinks that probably Alistair needs this, too.

A kiss is such a little thing between them, nothing but skin to skin.

And yet—

"You're going to undermine my authority if you keep this up," Alistair says into her hair. Bethany feels his arms tighten. "No one's going to listen to me if they know you can show up and I'll stop paying attention to them."

"I can go find work to do," she murmurs. "I'm sure someone needs healing. That _is_ why I'm here, remember?"

"Don't overwork yourself," he says, pulls back just enough so that he can look her in the eye and so that she can see the masked worry hiding there. Andraste, but Alistair never stops thinking about her well-fare, even when he should.

"I won't," Bethany says, conveniently forgetting how hard healing is. She has to. She _has_ to. Everything is on fire, and she can't run off. Not again. Not when she can do something to _help_.

"You're not going to listen to me, are you," Alistair says, flatly. His gaze flicks back and forth over her face, catching on things like broken bones and broken promises and broken homes. There's a lot of unsaid things in it, and it makes her lungs squeeze so sharply that it's sweet.

"No, probably not," Bethany says, honest, around the lump in her throat. "I can be useful here, Alistair."

"I just don't want you to be so useful that you die, Beth!"

"That's not how that works—?"

"With our luck, it might," Alistair says darkly. He returns his attention to the valley for long, quiet moments that hang in the air like lingering droplets of freezing rain. The silence swells, infected like a bad wound, and he finally blows all the breath from his lungs. Shakes his head. "Poor bastards."

"Them or us?"

"Both," he says. "I'm going to be very upset with you if I have to carry you back to camp tonight, Beth."

"I'll try to remember that," she says. Curiosity gets the better of her after a moment, though, and she tips her head, asks, "Would you really be upset with me?"

"Well," Alistair says, blinks. "No. Not really. But I'd be very upset with everyone _else_ for letting it happen. And I'd murder Cullen."

"He's not even here?"

"It'd make me feel better."

Bethany smothers a laugh into his shoulder. They really ought not be doing this here, not right now. Half the Inquisition is scattered through the Hinterlands, and she thinks she can hear Scout Harding coughing somewhere in the background because Scout Harding has some tact, but there's—

Well.

He's _Alistair_.

She couldn't resist him when she was eighteen, and she certainly can't resist him now. Templar, Commander, whatever he is, whatever he becomes—they're in this together. That's what belonging is, isn't it? Figuring it out, even when everything is on fire. _Especially_ when everything is on fire.

Bethany stands up on her tiptoes and kisses his cheek again.

(Let him have no authority; she wouldn't trade this for anything.)

"Shall we go fix this mess?" Bethany says.

"Yes," Alistair says. "Let's."

And so they do. They descend into the valley, and throw themselves into the work.

Andraste, but there's so _much_.

Bethany loses her husband in the crush of people, and she's not very surprised by that. Alistair's already shouting orders to the Inquisition soldiers to begin unloading the supplies they've brought from Haven; thank the Maker, he always knows what he's doing. Besides, it's not hard to follow the thin reedy sound of pain from the healer's tents. It's a cacophony, a horrible, bone-quaking _wail_ of sound that shudders up her spine. It sets all her teeth on edge.

And so this is what Bethany does, weaving her way between the remnants of shattered cobbles and the blackened trails where the fires have finally been put out. Puddles of water from the last rain refract the sky in shards, alternating blue and green depending on the light, and here Bethany treads careful. The Crossroads are only barely stable, and there's no telling what will happen, given how much magic's been thrown around. If it's seeped into the ground…

 _Better than the Blight_ , Bethany tells herself firmly. _Nothing could be as bad as that_.

And perhaps not. But the darkspawn—they never really _thought_ about things, did they? They weren't really people. Bethany thinks about Anders, and about how his shoulders used to hunch up past his ears whenever anyone would ask him about the Deep Roads.

 _It's not like you think it'll be. It's not an escape_ , he'd said, the one and only time she'd asked. Anders was perpetually tired, but he'd been worse, after that. Neria had made him a little lighter, but he always got so knotted whenever anyone asked about who he'd used to be. Bethany had left it alone.

But as she works her way through the tents and over people shaking with their pain, she thinks about it.

She thinks about Anders, and she thinks about her Father, and she thinks about Carver.

She thinks about the Taint.

The poison of it, the crawling darkness, the way it sinks into the ground and spreads its ugly claws. The film it leaves over the eyes, the black-and-red rags, the horrible gasping way it leaves a person to die. She thinks she can feel the aftereffects of it, here, the way the ground shirks away from the light even as it craves it, exactly as the darkspawn do.

Bethany has never seen an archdemon, and she doesn't think she ever will.

(Or maybe she just prays that she won't. Please, Andraste, hasn't the world suffered enough?)

She's not sure how long she heals, nor how much magic she expends to do it. Bethany pushes sweat-soaked curls off of her forehead and takes a moment to breathe. The Hinterlands sunshine is weak, but it is warm against her skin, chasing away some of the exhaustion. She wonders, idly, if her children are doing alright.

Bethany closes her eyes—

"I did not think ze Champion's sister would be so quiet," comes a low, musical voice from somewhere over her shoulder. Bethany startles into wakefulness, weak afternoon sunlight in her eyes, jerks to sitting straight up. She'd not even realized she'd fallen asleep, she's more tired than she'd thought—

It registers that someone had been speaking to her.

Bethany twists about to find a Chantry Mother standing above her in the crimson-and-gold Chantry garb, starkly brilliant against the pale blue sky. The face peering out of the headdress is dark-skinned as Isabela in late summer but lined, older, with less fun sparkling in the eyes but the same wicked-sharp intelligence. There's no resemblance at all, but Bethany's breath catches in her throat all the same, and it aches with memory.

(Oh, Maker, Bethany misses her family.)

"Pardon?" Bethany says.

But the Chantry Mother simply watches her, placid, her hands folded in front of her. The resemblance to Isabela fades further, leaves a shuddering hole inside of her chest that's all frozen around the edges and hurts to touch, and Bethany brings herself back. The Mother is waiting for her, as though she knows very well that Bethany's been lost inside her own head.

"You do not resemble her," the Chantry Mother says, with no inflection beyond the throaty roll of an Orlesian accent. She tilts her head just a little, the purse of her lips strange and pensive. Bethany tries not to recoil. She's spent her whole life hiding in her elder sister's shadow, and despite the fact she's grown, despite the fact that Marian's been gone for months, despite a war and a hole in the sky, it still—still feels wrong, when a Chantry Mother looks through her like she's made of glass.

"No," Bethany says, slow, soft. She inhales courage. "I don't."

The Chantry Mother kneels down next to her, smooths a hand over the troubled brow of the prone body in front of them. Andraste, if the wounds don't get him, the fever will. Bethany looks at the Mother out of the corner of her eye, and wonders just how much death there's already been. How much there is to come. How much didn't have to happen at all.

Most of it, truthfully.

Bethany tries not to think about it too much—she was as much a part of it as anyone in Kirkwall, and perhaps more-so, given the proximity to Marian. As though wars are as easily ended as they are begun; the knowledge shudders behind her ribs, thudding perfectly in time with her heart.

So, no: Bethany does not resemble the Champion, and the difference grows starker by the day.

It's very quiet between the two women for a long moment. The Chantry Mother shores up her space, knees ground into the dirt, and doesn't look particularly holy. She mostly looks… ordinary, like any other person among the dead and dying, trying to get by. The Crossroads hover around them, clouds streaked out across the sky in wispy white fingers, delicate as lace, pale as snow, and Bethany thinks again of Isabela, and again of Marian, and yet again of the Taint.

All the things they'd had to leave behind.

"I did not mean to offend," the Mother says. There's a kind of detente to it, an apology stitched between the lines. "I 'ave only met ze Champion once."

Bethany's shoulders drop from where they'd bunched up around her ears.

"You're not wrong," she says. "We're not alike, my sister and I, but she's—"

"She is still your sister," the Mother supplies.

"Yes," Bethany says, because it's true. Marian is still her sister, will still be her sister when the world ends in fire and blood. Maker, but it already has! She doesn't have to look up to feel the horrible _wrongness_ of the Breach, the way it makes all of her teeth ache in her mouth, choking up her throat. "She is."

"Family is 'ard," the Mother says. She smooths the skirt of her habit over her knees, one long unbroken movement that Bethany recognizes from when she does it herself, something to drop the eyes, something to make yourself look approachable, vulnerable, not a threat.

 _Trust me, I'm here to help_ , the movement says, an offer so sweet that it's almost a shame it's a lie. Bethany had wanted to be a part of the Chantry once, but that was a very long time ago.

Apology or not, she doesn't really want it anymore.

And she has no business being _anyone's_ puppet.

"It can be," Bethany says. Healing's blue-green-white glitters flickers and fades from the tips of her fingers, there and then not. And she's feeling better. It's easy to pull her older sister's vicious confidence over her face like a mask. "I'm sorry to be blunt, Mother, but what are you looking for? I don't know where my sister is, you see. You'd be better off asking Varric."

"Zat is not what I wished to ask," the Mother says. "I only came to say 'ello. I have 'eard of you, of course. Ze Inquisition has done much good for ze people 'ere."

 _I'm sure you have_ , Bethany thinks, sharp and unbidden. She tamps it down, trying to find the armistice of the moment before.

But this is not just a conversation.

These things never are.

"We're trying," Bethany says, voice level. "People expect the world from the Herald, but she can't do everything. This is helpful, at least."

"I suppose," the Mother says. Bethany can feel the weight of the woman's gaze, heavy with measure

The silence between them is so loud.

"Ah," says the Mother, at last. She stands and it takes forever. The afternoon sunlight glints off the golden thread stitched into the sunburst on her chest, starry-dazzling in Bethany's eyes. "I should leave you. You 'ave 'ealing to do, I am sure. You are doing good work, 'ere, and we do appreciate it."

"Thank you, Mother," Bethany says, ducks her head.

"Enjoy ze rest of your day, Lady Hawke."

"I'm sorry," Bethany calls after her, trying to keep the cold that's struck her from her voice. Oh, Andraste. "I didn't get your name?"

The Mother smiles at her over her shoulder, only the faintest wisp of curl to her mouth. Forgotten terror threatens in Bethany's throat, sharp like metal, red and bitter like brass. _Templar_ , the word buzzes when it should mean nothing, anymore.

"Oh," the Mother says, smiles. Her eyes are dark and shiny in her face. "Please. Call me Giselle."

—

When Alistair finally stumbles into the tent that they're bunking in for the next while, his mouth drops open.

"Are you going to put on your own clothes?" he asks, faintly.

"Should I?" Bethany asks, hitches the neckline of his shirt higher up her shoulder. Languid pleasure stirs in her chest at the naked want on his face. Alistair never did know how not to wear his heart on his sleeve; it makes her shivery-tender sweet behind the ribs, and only twice as possessive.

Alistair crooks an eyebrow at her. "Really, Beth? _Really_? How do you expect me to think when you're wearing my shirt?"

"Oh, hush, you think just fine," Bethany says, pinking faintly. How does he manage to do this? How does he manage to make her feel like she's all of eighteen years old, stumbling over the hem of her pinions, magic clenched too tight in her fists, so completely useless at being any sort of _person_ around him? They're both grown adults! They've both killed people! They're in the middle of trying to fix a _war_! More to the point, they're _married_!

Alistair laughs, softly, a golden thing from under his breath that colours up the air around them as he takes his armour off and makes his way over to settle himself down next to her on the bedroll. His skin is warm beneath hers, summertime freckles fading away in the Frostbacks' snow. For all that her husband has spent the last decade of his life with her in Kirkwall's madness, he's still a Hinterlands creature at heart. Bethany remembers how he used to carry Ferelden with him, just as Carver did. Maybe she ought not be so surprised that the men she loves the most carry the wild nothing home with them.

It's just that sometimes Bethany thinks that Alistair won't even admit it to himself, how glad he is to be home.

"Hello there," Alistair murmurs, brushing his nose against her cheek, his mouth against the line of her jaw. "Did you have a good day?"

"Three people died," Bethany says, softly, and only because he'd asked. There are no secrets between, but, still. Three people. They'd passed in the quiet, but at least she'd been able to do something for the pain. "More tomorrow, probably."

Alistair's arms go tight around her. "I'm sorry," he says, a murmur.

"So am I," Bethany says, and she is. Maker, but she is. "And I spent the afternoon talking to a Chantry Mother."

"Well, that's _far_ worse than dead people," Alistair reflects, but there's truth beneath the levity. "Are you alright? What did she want?"

"Honestly, I don't… know," Bethany says. She's thought about it for hours, but she still can't quite decipher what it was that Mother Giselle was looking for. "It was very odd, she seemed to want—I really don't know."

Alistair makes a low dark sound under his breath. "Bloody hell, I can't leave you alone for five minutes, can I?"

"It's fine, nothing happened," Bethany shakes her head. She runs a finger along the line of his collarbone, trying to take his attention away. "I'd rather not talk about it. What about you? How was your day?"

"Quit it, I really can't think when you do that," Alistair complains, nips at neck right where she's most ticklish in punishment. Bethany giggles, squirms, bites him right back. "Hey!"

"You bit me first!"

"Because you're— _hey_!" Alistair breaks off when she does it again, and tries for a glare that doesn't work very well for the fondness in his eyes. "Brat. My day was terrible, so I'm rather glad you're here."

"Why?"

"We're heading to Val Royeaux."

"What? When?"

"Soon," Alistair says. "As soon as the Chantry will give us the time of day."

"Oh," Bethany says. "Maybe that's what she wanted, then."

"What?"

"To know where I stand."

Alistair inhales sharply, air hissing through his teeth. He yanks her into his chest and closes around her tight as vice and Bethany, Bethany lets him hold her constricted there, covered over and held down and full up, safe only because they're together. She can't quite breathe and it hurts, but she won't— _can't_ —push him away. She smells skin and sweat and metal, hears nothing but the harsh pull of air as he breathes and the _pop-crack_ of her spine, feels only flesh and bone closing in tighter and tighter.

Oh, but she can taste his fear.

(Her own, too. Always, too, her own.)

Bethany and Alistair cling to one another in the fading orange glow of the embers of the fire outside for a long time, muted by the canvas of the tent walls. Maker, they have to be so quiet, they can't make a sound for fear of waking half the camp. But Val Royeaux looms over the horizon of the mind, an ominous shadow painted over in Orlesian gilt and pastels. The Divine's city. Andraste, but a shiver still works its' way down Bethany's spine just thinking about it. She presses her face into Alistair's shoulder, doesn't move until the shaking stops.

"Really, though. Are you alright?" he asks into the dark.

"I will be," she whispers.

Neither of them says anything else. They don't need to; _I will be_ lingers on the tongue like fine wine. Alistair's breathing evens, eventually, slipping down into the natural rhythms of a body in repose. He relaxes in increments; he so rarely gets the kind of rest he needs that it takes a long time, all of his muscles unknotting one by one. Bethany counts the seconds between his breaths, counts the freckles swallowed by the shadows, counts the individual spikes of eyelashes over skin. It slows her heart rate down until it's something manageable again.

Bethany can only stay curled beside him, listening to the steady _thud_ of his heart, and think that she might not ever sleep well again.

—

.

.

.

.

.

 _tbc_.


	3. part of the wild nowhere

**disclaimer** : disclaimed.  
 **dedication** : to chocolate and tiny plants and figuring out how to change a vacuum bag  
 **notes** : HONEY I'M HOME  
 **notes2** : man, being an adult is wild.

 **chapter title** : part of the wild nowhere  
 **summary** : There is a new Commander in Haven. — templar!au part ii; Alistair/Bethany.

—

.

.

.

.

.

It is very odd to have nothing to do.

Or, rather, it's very odd to have nothing to distract herself with while she waits for the Lady Herald's company to return from the Orlesian capital. Haven seems to be holding its breath: even the mages and the templars stayed from the Conclave have left off hostilities, all just _waiting_. Even the wind's gone quiet, and the children, too. The sun is blinding off the snow, mirror-sparkle and shimmer-shard, but it feels like the entire world has frozen in place.

Bethany finds herself playing with her hands.

(Sweet Andraste, she hasn't done that since she was a _teenager_.)

But the truth is that no one knows what's going on, and playing with her hands is just about exactly as productive as anything anyone else is doing. And maybe she ought not mind it so much—Maker knows she's never really had an idea of what her sister used to get up to, and that _need-to-know_ certainly extends to whatever it is the Herald is currently in the middle of—but, well—

 _Alistair_.

Her husband isn't precisely in the habit of watching his own back!

Bethany pushes her curls out of her face, resolutely doesn't allow herself to glance out the window for the fifth time in as many minutes.

 _Don't, Bethy_ , she tells herself, stern, _he'll be back when he gets back, and you waiting on it won't hurry him up_.

It's what she would have to say to anyone else in the same situation, but taking her own advice is a bitter herb to swallow. She makes a face at herself in the reflection off the glass, too fast for anyone else to catch. Her eyes crinkle up as she realizes that she looks like Carver at his most surly, and she can't help the bubble of amusement that escapes her throat.

The strangest things make Bethany laugh.

"Mother? Is something wrong?"

"No, darling, I'm just thinking of your father," Bethany says. Her voice goes soft, and she finds her oldest daughter standing at her elbow, looking up. Liana carries Alistair in the shape of her eyes, in the burnt ochre of her hair. Sometimes it hurts to look at, and right now is one of those times. It aches in Bethany's chest, how much they look alike.

How much she loves them for it, too.

"He's been gone forever," Lia says, scrunching up her face.

"It's hardly been a week, Lia," Bethany says, which is a good remind for them both. "Five days. That's not forever, is it?"

"It feels like it," Lia pronounces. "For- _ever_!"

There's bravado in her daughter's words, but Bethany can her the tremble underneath. Lia's as worried as Bethany herself is; it must extend to Carina, too, and maybe even Malcolm for all that he's perhaps too young to really understand what's going on. The twins have quieted and mostly kept to themselves, these last few days. Bethany can't really say she's surprised.

They _are_ her daughters, after all.

Bethany puts her arm around Lia's slim shoulders to pull her close. Liana almost hesitates—oh, please, no, it's too early for her to be growing up already—but only for a second. She presses her face into Bethany's side, mouth puckering into a pout. Lia's ruffled all over, grumpy and put out and she's only eight but she's so tall.

"You're right," Bethany murmurs, smoothing the girl's hair down, hands so gentle. "It does feel like forever. Do you miss him?"

"Carina does," Lia says, archly. "She told me so."

"You miss him, too!" Carina gasps, incensed at being sold out, making her way over from across the room. Mal's left on the floor, playing with his colourful wooden blocks, very cheerfully ignoring his older sisters. He really has the right of it.

"I never said I didn't, but you miss him more!"

"That's a lie! Mother, she's lying!" Carina says. She attaches herself to Bethany's other side, and just like that, they're two halves of the same whole, balanced out again. "We miss him the same!"

"It's alright to miss him, you know," Bethany says, smiling out of the corner of her mouth. They are funny when they get like this; always in tandem, even when they don't want to be. It's the little things that remind her of her own twin. "I certainly do."

"That's _you_ , Mother," Liana and Carina say at the very same time, and then proceed to make horrible faces at one another.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You always miss Father," Liana says, like this is the most obvious thing in the whole entire world. Carina nods vigorously. "So you don't count."

"Oh, is that how it is I don't count?"

"No, you don't," Lia says. "You always miss him the most, of course you don't count!"

"I don't think that's how that works, Lia," Bethany tells her.

It's not really about who misses who the most, but Bethany's not sure how to explain to the twins. They've never needed anyone the way Bethany needs Alistair; they've got each other, and they've never felt so unloved or so unsafe that they needed to find themselves in someone else. Maybe that'll happen one day, but Bethany hopes that it won't. It's an ugly thing, to need someone so much.

But maybe it's a special thing, too. Bethany pulls the twins in a little closer, mirrors on each side.

"How does it work, then?" Liana cocks her head.

"I'm—girls, it's not really something—"

"Maker's breath, Lia, why are you harassing your mother?"

"We're _teasing_ her, Father, she's saying that she's— _Father_!"

And just like that, Lia and Rina are off of Bethany and across the room. Fast as a burn, they streak to the door and _throw_ themselves on top of Alistair, climbing all over him and talking a league a minute at the top of their voices. Malcolm is calmer about it, toddles over to his father and his sisters to demand attention, as well, and for a moment Bethany just watches them, breathless from how lovely it is.

That's her family.

That's her _family_.

It might only be a minute that she watches them. It might be an hour. It might be several sunlit days.

But it will never be enough.

"Hello, love," Alistair says, and stoops to kiss Bethany on the mouth. The twins hang off of him, Malcolm in the middle, but he pays the three of them no mind; it's like they don't weigh anything, and Alistair's too focused on Bethany to care, regardless. He grins crookedly down at her over the top of their son's head, gaze soft.

"Hi," Bethany says, still a little breathless. She wants to kiss him again. "You're back. How was Val Royeaux?"

Alistair doesn't answer her right away. Something flickers behind his eyes for a moment. It's so quick that Bethany nearly doesn't catch it, but it is there, a thing dark and furious and nameless besides.

And whatever it is, it is freezing cold.

But it's gone before she can blink, and Bethany's husband breathes out. "It was—something. I'm glad to be back."

Bethany tips her head to the side, brow furrowing. _That bad_?

 _Worse_. Alistair's face darkens. _I'll tell you later_.

They manage to have the silent conversation over their children's heads, thank the Maker. Or over the twins' heads, at least; Malcolm is still quiet, but he reaches for Bethany from Alistair's arms.

"I think someone wants his mother," Alistair says, voice wry, a fond little smile tucked away into the corners. It is desperately easy to love Malcolm, and Alistair is particularly transparent about it. "Am I not entertaining enough? Maker's breath, someone should let Lady Cassandra know, she might leave me alone."

"You're getting too big for this, you know," Bethany tells Malcolm. He ignores the scolding, as Mal's always been wont to do, and makes himself comfortable without further ado. Bethany has to shuffle him over just a little bit, bustled securely against her hip, before she really processes what Alistair's just said.

When it finally makes it way into her skull, Bethany blinks. "What did Lady Cassandra do, now? Did she yell at Varric some more? I thought she was past that."

"No, nothing like that at all," says Alistair, sounding _far_ too overly cheerful about it.

Bethany squints at him. Her husband is a terrible liar, and always has been: now is no different. He's got that unhappy cast to his mouth that he gets when he's trying to force himself to be alright about something that no one should ever have to be alright with.

She decides right then and there that she's going to get whatever it is that's happened out of him as soon as the children are down to sleep, because whatever it is, it's rattled him down to his core.

Maker knows that it hurts to see Alistair look like this.

And so, despite the fact that she's got her husband back after far too long apart, the lingering warning of it is all Bethany can concentrate on for the rest of the evening. It's in everything. It's in the way he tosses Liana and Carina into the air after supper, in the way he hooks his arms around Bethany's waist and his chin over her shoulder, in the way he wraps Malcolm up in blankets before bedtime.

It's _ominous_ is what it is, and Bethany can't wait to be free of its grime.

But it's not until the children are tucked into bed and the sun has sunk beyond the horizon that Bethany gets her answers. It's a cool night, but not too cold; good enough for a walk up to the Chantry, away from prying ears.

"Alright," Bethany says, when they're out of earshot of the cabin. "What's happened?"

"The Lord Seeker punched Revered Mother Hevara in the head," Alistair says, without preamble. The _crunch_ of snow beneath his boots whiles away the words. "And the templars have abandoned the Chantry. Oh, _and_ the Inquisition's been invited to talk to the mage rebellion! I wish you'd been there. It was like being in the Hanged Man after services on Maker's Day."

"I— _what_?"

"Which part?"

"Alistair! All of it! Don't tease!"

He laughs, but it isn't a happy sound. "I wish it were teasing. It really was like being home, Beth, I was surprised."

"Oh, home, is that it?" Bethany manages. Sudden wooziness washes over her, and she is infinitely glad that he's holding her hand to keep her attached to the ground. "Andraste, was it really as bad as Kirkwall?"

"Well, no, not really," Alistair says, contemplative for a long moment. "Close, though? Maybe? I thought we were done for."

"That's—was anyone hurt?"

Alistair laughs. "Only you, Beth."

The Chantry doors are heavy woods, but the flush of heat from inside sings siren song. There are all sorts of little nooks and crannies here, and this late, only the most pious of Haven's residents remain. In the shadow of the corner, Bethany fists her hands in the front of Alistair's shirt. It's an unconscious thing; she doesn't know whether she does it to yank him down to look him in the eye, or simply because right this minute, she needs something to hold onto. Both, maybe. Both, for sure, and Alistair comes down easy, allows her to keep him close. Maybe he knows she needs this, too.

The chuckle slips from his mouth low and amused. It trickles down Bethany's spine sweet as spring rain and she shivers, pressing a little closer.

"Yes, love?"

He is a _menace_. If Malcolm ends up with _half_ of Alistair's charm, they are going to be in a ridiculous amount of trouble; their son has too much magic as it is, and he acquires an attitude to match, there'll be no stopping him.

And it's easier to think about their son than about—everything else.

But _everything else_ is what they have.

A shiver works its way down Bethany's spine.

"Alistair," she murmurs, "I don't think we're supposed to be here."

"No, I can't imagine we should be," he says into her shoulder. She can feel the way his mouth curves up into that dangerous lopsided grin, and the shiver ripples to gooseflesh all over. They're in the _Chantry_ , dear Andraste, if they get caught, they're _definitely_ going to get in trouble. But Bethany can't help herself; she presses forwards into his chest, close enough that she can hear his heart. "Does it matter?"

"I don't—maybe? Alistair—" Bethany says, swallowing down the sweet sound that threatens in her throat as his mouth brushes across the back of her neck.

"Aren't you going to tell me to stop? Because you're not wrong, Beth, we probably shouldn't be here," Alistair smiles into her ear, hands coming up to curl around her hips. He draws slow, steady circles into her skin, cheek to cheek, nose at her temple as he crinkles up her skirt in the shadow of the wall. He is a _tease_.

And yet Bethany finds herself clutching at him, keeping him close as she can because it's so rare, now, that they have the time to remember each other. She _wants_. It hums along her bones how much she wants. "Don't you dare, Alistair, don't you _dare_."

Her husband laughs, more wind than sound. His lips are on her throat, big wide palms curving around her thighs, her ribs, everywhere but where she wants them. Bethany drops her head back with a tiny whisper of a moan.

"Quiet, Beth, we talked about this," Alistair murmurs into her clavicle. He kisses the words there; presses down with his teeth.

Bethany wants to grind him down against a pew, crawl into his lap, suck on his tongue until the world makes sense again. She shudders when he finally manages to free her shift from her skirt and it's bare skin on bare skin, too hot, too close, his mouth closing around her nipple.

He worries at her chest until she's shaking in his arms and half-ready to explode, following the line of freckles between her breasts. Hips twitching towards him, making choked off-little noises. _Need_ is white-hot, and oh, Andraste, Bethany _needs_.

Alistair drops to his knees.

"We can't, Alistair, not here, we _can't_ —"

"Too late," Alistair says, grins horribly, and ducks beneath her skirt.

The breath dries from her lungs at the first touch of his mouth on her cunt. Alistair slings one of her legs over his shoulder, takes most of her weight, and _drinks_.

It's all Bethany can do to hold on.

She loses all sense of time. She might whine, or pray, or _beg_. Whatever it is, only the Maker hears, and Alistair smiles into the apex of her thighs. Wound so tight, she doesn't even hear herself scream.

All of Bethany's muscles go lax at once. She sags back against the wall.

"You're going to be the death of me, did you know that?" she accuses, faint.

"That's the plan," Alistair says, rising to kiss her. He looks altogether too pleased with himself, but Bethany is too old now to be upset at the tang of her own self. And so, together, they begin to put her back to rights. There's no helping the state of Alistair's hair.

"Maker's breathe, is everyone alright?! Someone said something about a scream, I heard—!"

Alistair and Bethany both turn at once to blink, rather dumbly, at Ser Cullen.

"Er? Are you—is everything—oh. _Oh_."

The thing is, there's not much to misconstrue, here. Bethany's skirt is rucked up, and the ties to her shift are entirely undone. She looks—Maker, she looks _well-tumbled_ , no mistake.

And Ser Cullen is _profoundly dismayed_.

"You—you didn't," he says, face etched with horror. He rather has the air of a scandalized Chantry Mother, which would be very funny in any other situation. When neither Bethany nor Alistair quite look him in the eye, he actually takes a step back. "You _did_. In the Chantry! You two are—what is _wrong_ with you?!"

Bethany's cheeks _burn_. Alistair casually wipes his mouth.

"Not as much as you, mate," Alistair says. "At least _someone's_ getting off, 'round here."

"Must you be so crass?!" Ser Cullen snaps.

Alistair looks to be about to retort, but the absolute ridiculousness of the situation finally wins out, and Bethany can't help it.

She starts to laugh.

—

The Herald of Andraste is a hard woman to find.

Not that Bethany's been looking; it's more of an idle observation, because it seems like everyone is looking for the Herald all the time, and no one ever seems able to _find_ her. From the rumours, the Herald is halfway over Ferelden three days a week, back and forth from here to the Waking Sea, to the endless autumn depths of the Hinterlands, and even further south, through the Blighted remains of Lothering and into the Fallow Mire deep in the Wilds. With a schedule like that, it's hardly a surprise that she never touches down long enough to grow roots, but for a Dalish girl, especially a Dalish mage, it can't be an easy time of it.

(Bethany finds herself thinking of Merrill. She thinks that her old friend might have some advice for the Herald; it might not be a bad idea to write her a letter. Haven is a lot of things, but welcoming? No, perhaps not.)

And so: the Herald of Andraste is a hard woman to find.

Excepting, of course, when one isn't doing the looking.

Bethany doesn't trust Mother Giselle as far as she can throw her, but the woman organizes the volunteer healers and the herbalists, and Liana and Carina like to make themselves useful at the strangest times and in the strangest ways. There's too much elfroot 'round the cabin for Bethany to use herself, and the Inquisition ought not go without.

But this is how she finds herself in the Chantry with her arms full of herbs, feeling eighteen and like she's about to be scolded all over again.

It's an inverse of a long time ago, the first time she'd ever been kissed. Bethany studiously keeps her eyes away from the dark corner that she's absolutely certain she's never going to be able to look at without turning crimson ever again. Time is a broken and ancient crawl, but thick as quicksand, and she allows it to pull her under.

Everything smells of elfroot and oil, metal and skin.

For a moment, nothing has changed at all.

It occurs to Bethany that there is no one in the Chantry who ought to smell like that. Alistair isn't around, but the scent hangs in the air thick as smoke regardless. He must have been here, or maybe—

"Thank you, Madame Hawke," Mother Giselle says, breaking Bethany of her reverie. "We do appreciate your efforts."

"Of course, Mother, there's plenty. You know how the girls are. Anything they _can_ pick, they will," Bethany demurs. And she means it, too; in the summertime, the house will be full to bursting with dandelions and mountain wildflowers, she has no doubt. Alistair's going to have a right fit, he gets so sniffly from the pollen.

A slim elven girl goes careening by, skidding to a halt before she flattens herself against the wall and backtracking towards them. The entire Chantry's fallen silent t her entrance, Bethany notes, and, _oh_ —

"Mother Giselle, I've brought the herbs you asked for," the elf girl says, just the littlest bit out of breath. She's pale and pointed, ashy blonde hair and dark blue eyes, a stave strapped to her back. Mage, then. And inked over with blue tattoos, curling, crawling, stark across her brow. Vallaslin. Not the same as Merrill's, but still. Dalish.

Bethany had heard that the Herald was an elven mage. She'd _not_ heard that the Herald was _Dalish_. That's something else entire.

Maker's breath.

"Ah, thank you, my lady," Mother Giselle smiles fondly at her. Bethany has _never_ seen the good Mother smile like this. It is extraordinary. "We appreciate it. Madame Hawke was just doing the same. Have you met?"

"No, we haven't," says the girl—the _Herald_. She is, upon closer inspection, older than Bethany had thought. A grown woman, not some wide-eyed girlchild. "Hawke? The Commander's wife? He's talked about you."

It's the first time Bethany's heard her last name without the immediate connection to her older sister. She finds that she quite likes it, and so she smiles. "That's Alistair for you. I'm Bethany, I hope he hasn't been giving you a hard time?"

"Ellana, Clan Lavellan," the Herald says. "No, he's fine. Useful, as humans go."

She doesn't stick out a hand, and Bethany understands. The Herald is rather alone in this world full of Mothers and Sisters and human gods. she can almost hear the _shem_ from the woman's mouth; it shapes the word. But _useful, as humans go_ is far less combative than Bethany supposes the woman could say. Her husband is many things, but all of them are kind.

(Silly, too. Alistair is almost exactly as silly as he is kind.)

"Good, I'm glad," Bethany smiles. "He tries."

A beat of silence.

Mother Giselle looks between them, one eyebrow half-crooked, but says nothing. There are currents running through the air that Bethany can't parse apart, but she can feel them shifting around her. She thinks of the Waking Sea, and chains, and leaving before things are altogether finished.

Better to simply let things happen.

"Excuse me, Mother, that's all I have for now," Bethany says. It cuts through the silence like a knife through butter. "I ought to go find my daughters and get them out of whatever trouble they've cooked up."

"Would you mind company?"

Bethany looks at the Herald out of the corner of her eye. There's a settled sharpness to the woman's jaw, as though she's made a decision and she's going to follow it through, no matter how much damage it does her, nor how much embarrassment it causes. There's no avoiding whatever it is the Herald wishes to speak of, so Bethany doesn't try.

"Of course not, my lady," she says, instead.

"Maker guide you," Mother Giselle says, like an echo.

It's very strange, Bethany thinks, how quiet she is.

(Like she's not even there.)

And so, the two women leave the Chantry in silence. Haven paints itself in brilliance as they step out into the sunshine; the sounds of the village going about their day clashes and clangs around them in gold and bright white, smoke and firewood and the ache of too many bodies pressed into too small a space. The Herald is dressed in utilitarian winter garb, warm and easy to move in, and she blends into the crowds. Or she would, except that the crowds move out of the way, awe in their eyes.

The Herald's discomfort is a palpable thing.

"This way," Bethany murmurs. She nods to the tavern, up to the apothecary and round down the battlements. "Fewer people."

The panic on the Lady Herald's face thins as the crowd does, and they duck down into the Chanty's long shadow. She releases a slow breath, like water sliding out of a broken jug.

And then she looks right at Bethany, and asks the question that everyone always ends up asking.

"What's your sister like?"

Oh.

Of course.

(Andraste, but Bethany wishes she had a better answer. Even after all these years, it still doesn't come easy. But maybe there isn't a better answer—maybe this is what she has. Maybe every conversation will come back to Marian Hawke, and the awful, cruel cut of Marian's Hawke's mouth. Maybe every conversation will cut her open from sternum to stomach and leave her to bleed. Maybe every conversation will end up revolving around her shattered family. And maybe, just maybe, that's alright.)

"My sister? You're better off asking Varric that," Bethany tells the Herald, a little wry. "He's the storyteller, not me."

"He'll just lie," says the Herald.

Bethany can't fault her, there. Varric _will_ just lie. Inquisition or not, holy wars or not, Varric, at his base, will always lie to keep the people he cares about locked up safe and sound. Frankly, _The Tale of the Champion_ was as close to the truth as it could be, barring a few choice scenes that Bethany knows for a _fact_ that Varric had lied through his teeth about, only because she'd _been_ there for them. It had flowed so well, and made so much sense, that for one minute she'd almost found herself believing it. Could see it shimmering on the horizon, a vivid and vibrant green, a dream sparkling diamonds and good times and laughter like expensive golden wine.

There had been a lot more fear, if Bethany remembers correctly, but sometimes fear doesn't translate so well from living it to writing it down.

And besides.

Bethany's older sister wouldn't know fear if it hit her in the face.

"She's my sister," Bethany says, at last. "Sometimes I hate her. Sometimes I love her. She—" Bethany pauses to shake her head, because there's no real way to explain _what_ her sister was like, not without explaining _everything_ , "—did was she thought she had to, I suppose."

The Herald looks at Bethany with that very level, cool blue-grey gaze. She's got smears of kohl beneath her eyes, faint freckles across her nose beneath a thin tan. The vallaslin inked into her face is old but stark, dark blue. Keeper vallaslin, Merrill would say.

"Fair's fair. What's a Keeper doing in the middle of a human war?" the words force themselves out of Bethany's mouth.

They both freeze.

"I—I'm sorry, that was so rude, I didn't—" Bethany stumbles over the words, just as the Herald half-croaks, "Cassandra."

Bethany and the Herald freeze again, and blink at one another.

Snorting mirth creeps up on them both. It takes long minutes to settle, but something's eased in the air between them. Not entirely; Bethany gets the sense that this Keeper isn't so used to humans that she's ready to trust every random shem she meets.

"Lady Cassandra has a bad habit of kidnapping people, doesn't she?"

"I wasn't exactly kidnapped," the Herald says, slowly. She's quiet, measured, and hearing the accent sends a wave of nostalgia rolling over Bethany like seawater. Every so often, a few of the Dalish Marcher clans would come to Kirkwall's alienage to trade; no one sounds quite like them. "Drafted, maybe."

"That works out to the same thing," Bethany points out. She carefully doesn't stare down at the Herald's marked right hand; she thinks that the woman must get _quite_ enough of staring as it is. Whatever magic has torn the sky asunder, it's got more than its fair share of people gawking at her about it. Andraste, just thinking about it makes Bethany anxious. Maker knows, she's had enough of people looking at her for a lifetime, and she's not been _half_ so visible as the Lady Herald is.

"Says who?" the Herald asks.

"Varric," Bethany says, the corner of her mouth curling up. "And sometimes my husband, when he's feeling grumpy."

"I'm somehow not surprised," the Herald says, voice dry as autumn leaves. "They _would_ get along."

"For what it's worth, Varric calls Alistair 'Death Wish'. He says it suits him," Bethany shakes her head. She's never going to understand it.

"Varric sees things a little more clearly than the rest of us, I think."

Bethany glances sharply at the Herald out of the corner of her eye. She's bleached out in the brilliant gleam of sun-diamonds off the snow, looking very young and very old all at once. They've passed by the tavern, lute-song drifting by on the breeze for all the wind itself bites cold. Stalled out at the steps up to the apothecary, it's like they've stopped to take a breath. The Herald looks onwards and upwards, to where Master Solas idles, and it's clear on her face that she wishes to go speak with him. And that's nothing of the way the man lights up at the sight of her, visible on his face even from this distance.

Oh, but it does seem that falling in love is the same, no matter who happens to be involved, doesn't it?

"You're not wrong. And it's been lovely speaking to you, my lady," Bethany says. "But I do think that someone is looking for your attention."

"He's never looking for my attention," the Herald mutters, but it's an unconscious thing. Bethany thinks she doesn't even realize she's saying the words. "It's always the other way around."

"You'd be surprised," Bethany says, gentle. "He _is_ still looking at you."

"I, um—thank you?" the Herald says. "Tell the Commander I need to speak with him, when he has a minute. I—excuse me, I need to go—"

It's as a good a _goodbye_ as she's going to get. The Herald skitters off, nimble on her feet as she takes the steps two at a time. She's a gold flash and a white afterimage burned through with Fade-green, and the somberness that's suffused her the entire conversation lifts as though it had never been. Bethany turns her face up to the sun, closes her eyes.

It wasn't so long ago that she's forgotten what it feels like to want to talk to one single person _all the time_ , and how far a little privacy goes. How it thrills down the spine, and warms the cheeks, and blurs away the rest of everything. How it's lightning, and shocking, and the best thing ever.

How nothing else matters.

(Ah, _love_.)

—

Bethany isn't really sure what she'd been expecting.

The Herald is set on Redcliffe, and nothing that anyone does or says can sway her hand. The decision is made; the fledgling Inquisition will ask the mage rebellion for aid, and that is that.

Bethany exhales a sigh of relief she didn't know she'd been holding. It's not that she wouldn't have stayed, if the Inquisition had turned to the templars, but it would have been harder. She would have had to have been on her guard every minute of every day.

Andraste knows, she did that for nearly a decade, and she hated it then, too.

This, she thinks, is better.

Or at least, it would be, if Alistair wasn't so _entirely_ set on trying to prove that the Inquisition is a force to be reckoned with.

"I don't see why you have to go," Bethany says. She pulls the quilt around her shoulders a little tighter. It's freezing, and she's not wearing anything underneath. Maybe she ought to be a little more cognizant of that, but—her husband is leaving, again. Pre-dawn filters in grey and quiet, and Alistair has never looked less like himself.

"Because I said I would," Alistair says, grins at her a little crookedly. "Maker, you're shivering, Beth. Go back to bed."

"Only if you come, too," Bethany says, sets her jaw.

"You know I can't," he murmurs. He pulls on his gauntlets like an old habit.

It aches between Bethany's teeth, sharp and horrible. Somewhere along the way, Alistair grew up; she can see it hovering over his shoulders, the responsibility. The weight of other people's lives is heavy, and comes at such a substantial cost, and Alistair carries them like it's nothing.

Andraste, maybe they ought to have run away together a long time.

But—

No.

They're both in _far_ too deep, now. Too much time, too much energy, too much _hope_. Too much of their family, and too much of their lives.

Haven is what they have, now.

( _Everything else_.)

"I'm still cold," Bethany says, which is a stand-in for a lot of things. _I'll miss you_ and _please be safe_ and _I wish you weren't going at all_. They've talked circles around each other before, but sometimes it's too hard to say things out loud. She pulls the blanket tighter, but allows him to move into her space. His gauntlets bite silverite and shiny as they come up to pull her into his chest, with hardly anything between.

"I know," Alistair says. He bends down to press his mouth to the top of her head, smiles into her hair. "Try not to hate me for it?"

"I could never," Bethany says, shaking her head.

"Just making sure."

"But I _am_ going to tell the girls that they can go follow Ser Cullen around the barracks, until you get back. They need something to do."

Alistair groans. "Oh, come on, I don't deserve that. They'll have half the troops doing their bidding in a week! Maker, have mercy."

Bethany fights valiantly not to laugh at him. Alistair does always know just what to say to bright the lightness back, even when it doesn't feel like it should be able to, and she shuffles forward just enough that they're pressed cleanly together, not even a hairsbreadth left in between. Her breath catches her in her throat when he murmurs her name into her hair, because here, here is home. Here is home. Here is _home_.

(Oh, Maker, she loves him too much.)

"Hi," Alistair says, so softly, grinning crooked out of the corner of his mouth. "How are you?"

"I've been better," Bethany tells him, just as softly.

"What, no _hi_?"

"Hi," Bethany whispers. The word cracks right down the middle, tastes like a fight, tastes like blood on the lips and broken knuckles. She swallows down the aching behind her teeth, swallows the sob down whole, swallows and swallows until her throat is a little less dry. She rounds out the edges of the sound, smothers it, snaps it off like a broken neck until it's not there even a little bit. Tomorrow she'll be fine, and she'll be a grownup, and she'll behave like she's not crying right now at all. No one but Alistair needs to know how terrified she is.

His arms tighten. He strokes her spine, slow, careful, soothing.

"I'm not a cat, you know," Bethany says, a little wetly into his throat, surprising them both.

"Really? You're being about that recalcitrant," Alistair says. Pauses, grins horrible. "Re-cat-citant, shite, missed it, it's not funny anymore."

Oh, that was awful. Her husband is _awful_. Here Bethany is, trying to be serious whilst half-naked and freezing in a tiny wooden structure that hardly keeps the winter wind out, and, by Andraste herself, three-quarters of the way to tears, and he's going to make a terrible pun?

"Claw-ful," Bethany manages, because in truth they are _both_ awful. "It wasn't funny ever, Alistair!"

Alistair makes a choked-off noise like a laugh. "Come one, it was a little funny! Admit it, your sister would be pleased with me."

"My sister is the reason we're in this mess," Bethany tries for a retort, but it lacks bite, and she slumps against him. Everything is still a bit wet, unfortunately.

"Among other things," Alistair says, more like an afterthought than an actual addition to the conversation. He brushes curls away from her Bethany's face, hands gentle. "Are you going to be alright, dear?"

"I have to be, don't I?" Bethany says.

It's sad because it's mostly true.

Alistair hums a quiet sound into her hair. It slips down her shoulder blades, along the line of her back, settles at the base of her spine like a cool clear drop of water. Like a tear, or a new spring rain. Too much and not enough but still somehow just right.

They stand there for a while, Bethany with her blanket and Alistair with his armour, until the false dawn becomes less false and the room leavens from ink to pale greys and the barest hints of pale pink, creeping along the horizon over the mountains. It feels like a long time ago, a morning when they'd still been in Kirkwall and Alistair had still been a templar, and they'd still been young enough to have dreams.

But that _was_ a long time ago.

Bethany kisses his jaw. "You really should probably go before the girls wake up."

"You're not worried about Mal?"

"Mal wouldn't want to go with you," Bethany says, a little smile tugging at her mouth. "He's got some sense."

"No, he doesn't, he worse than the twins combined," Alistair says darkly, and Bethany can't really disagree with him. Because for all that Malcolm is five years old, he is going to be a _terror_ when he grows up, and there's no denying that.

Andraste, it must run in the family.

"Then _you_ can explain to Liana and Carina why they're not allowed to go see where you grew up."

"You wound me, Beth. Wound me!"

"You'll survive, I'm sure," Bethany tells him. She kisses his jaw again for good measure. Much as she wants to, she doesn't say _come back safe_. That's implicit; if he's leaving, he needs to come back safe. There are no demons that Bethany wants to fight on her own. She could do it if she had to, but by the Maker, she doesn't _want_ to.

"That's the hope," Alistair says. He catches her mouth once more, and then pulls away. "I'm off, then."

Alistair closes the door quietly when he goes, so quiet that Bethany can hardly hear the _click_ of the latch. She stands in silence for long moments, pulling her quilt tighter and tighter around her shoulders.

Oh, Andraste, Bethany misses him already.

But eventually, the air slides out of her lungs on a slow, sorry sigh.

There's nothing for it. He'll come back or he won't, and she can't go with him to make sure that hedoes.

Bethany does to put a dress on, and face the rest of the day.

—

A fortnight passes.

Thedas's twin moons wax full and then begin to wane again, a perfect pair of silver-spun discs of light hanging suspended above them. Satina and her ice-mirror twin sail the cold skies, sinking low across the horizon and scattering glinting diamonds over the mountain snow.

Every night they cut through the Breach, and Bethany holds her breath. But every night, they pass through the tear in the Veil unharmed, and she exhales her relief.

A fortnight, come and gone.

On the thirteenth day, Alistair comes home.

Bethany will never remember how this happens. Her knees give out. The Herald leads hundred of people into Haven's gates; the entire mage rebellion, with Lady Ellana at the head. They're bedraggled, and young, and old—this is not an army. They are a _people_ , and there are so many faces that Bethany thinks she ought to recognize but doesn't.

Her husband is the only thing that matters.

But he's already shouting at the recruits who remained behind to protect the village. Things settle, as they do.

And so, a strange thing about Haven:

It's always winter, but never Satinalia.

Endless cold, and so little cheer; there's no break to it, even though the sun shines fierce through the Breach. The people move through the village silent as wraiths, everyone on a knife's edge, just waiting for the next bit of the sky to fall. It's _silent_ , dreadfully so.

But there is entertainment, should a person choose to look for it.

The colourful swirl of mage robes draws Bethany out of her careful isolation; she'd have been one of the Enchanters here, if not for Alistair. That had never been in question. She'd lived in Kirkwall during the worst period of unrest in living memory, and she was born—and remains—a mage. There would have been no escaping it. It would have been her future, and it's not like the mage rebellion is unaware of who she is—it's hard to be anonymous when her last name is brandied about the way it is, and the way that the Champion of Kirkwall is so near a myth—so it's not as though they weren't expecting it.

Life goes on.

The apprentices have already assimilated into Haven's wild cacophony of children. A little less feral than the rest, perhaps, but that's the only difference. They rush past in a blur of skin and cloth, running down the icy hills to slip along the frozen waters of the lake. Bethany finds herself caught up in it, trapped in the swing and the sway, and allows herself to be carried along in their furor.

It's a brilliant day, and the sun seems close enough that the light is warm on her cheeks. Bethany meanders out through the gates to the palisade, nipped through with winter cold. Out here beyond them, the fear is sharper. She can taste it in the half-frantic screaming of sword against mail.

No one knows what to do, now that the Lady Herald has welcomed the mage rebellion with such open arms. Despite this, or perhaps because of, more people arrive every day. The Temple of Sacred Ashes had been a pilgrimage for the pious before the explosion, and now the people come to see Andraste's Chosen.

Across the sea of tents, Ser Cullen is looking rather more grim than usual.

"Cullen, when was the last time you slept?"

Ser Cullen stiffens, shoulders tightening just the slightest bit, exactly the way the twins do when they've been caught doing something they shouldn't. It must have been a while, then; days, maybe, even though everyone and their mother knows that Ser Cullen is a hundred times more tetchy when he doesn't get enough sleep. Bethany can't help the smile.

No one responds to a scolding the way Ser Cullen responds to a scolding.

"I—er—yesterday?" he says like a question, and winces with it. "Hello, Lady Bethany."

Bethany doesn't bother to correct him She stills calls him _Ser_ for herself, in the safety of her own mind, and she probably always will; some habits are hard to break. She settles at his side instead, gaze skimming over the mish-mash of templars and Inquisition recruits as they train. They're all so _green_ , so very, very young, and no amount of training is capable of obscuring that fact from anyone bothering to watch for more than a minute. Very few of these men and women have seen true combat before, and the ones that have are exhausted by it.

But—

"They're getting better," she murmurs, nodding towards the recruits.

"Took them long enough," mutters Ser Cullen, a little gruff, but there is an undeniable affection in the words. His gaze sharpens as it travels over her, assessing. "Is something bothering you?"

There are times, Bethany thinks, that Ser Cullen is too observant for his own good.

(This is unfortunate, as he never seems to manage to apply it to himself. Stones and throwing and glass houses, as it were.)

Bethany shakes her head. "Not bothered, not exactly. Bothered isn't the right word."

Ser Cullen glances at her out of the corner of his eye. "So, what is the right word?"

 _Do you think we're doing the right thing?_ is what Bethany wants to ask, but Ser Cullen isn't really the right person to answer that question. Alistair is, and she misses him fiercely in this moment, even though he's just on the other side of the training grounds. It always feels like he's too far away, no matter if he's pressed up against her in bed or halfway to Val Royeaux. It never feels like enough.

Instead, Bethany asks, "Have you met Lady Ellana's companions?"

"Which ones?"

"All of them."

To Bethany's immense delight, the tips of Ser Cullen's ears turn faintly pink, and he doesn't answer. He rather looks like he's choking on his tongue, in fact. "I'll take that as a yes?" she surmises, smiles sunnily at him. Oh, Andraste, it's so easy to get his goat, he walks right into the teasing. "They are lovely, aren't they."

Ser Cullen has the grace to sputter.

Bethany turns her head back towards the recruits to hide that she's poking fun. It comes easy, playfulness; sometimes, she thinks it's making up for Carver. Lose a twin, gain a brother.

Her stomach twists.

Oh, pain.

"They're—they're very—"

"I haven't seen you like this in a long time, Cullen," Bethany pokes him in the side, and, managing to contain the giggles, sweetly watches him squirm. "Who's gone and made you blush? Are they pretty?"

He sputters some more.

"It's fine if you can't say it, I'll just guess," Bethany tells him, consolingly.

"Please don't," he says, groans. "I will never live it down."

"You sound like Carver. Don't worry, Cullen, I won't rub it in your face, I'm not Alistair," Bethany says, and she tips her head at him, considering; she doesn't think it's a man, Ser Cullen has far too many silly Chantry notions about gallantry and tradition for a man, even now. So, a woman, then.

Might as well start at the start. From there, Bethany says the rest of the thoughts out loud. "Not Lady Cassandra. She terrifies you, and I think—is it just me, or does she remind you of my sister, somehow? Not the looks, but the—"

"—the _everything_ , yes. They mustn't meet, or we're all doomed," Ser Cullen confirms, grey-faced and grim at the thought.

Bethany doesn't blame him, and pats his elbow to tell him so. They both know perfectly well that Bethany's sister wreaks enough havoc on her own; she does not need the aid of the most formidable Seeker that Bethany has ever met. No, Marian certainly doesn't need more help; Andraste knows she's got _more_ than trouble in the form of Isabela. Better to let _that_ particular nightmare lie.

So it goes:

"Not Lady Montilyet," Bethany muses, more to herself than to him. "She's far too sophisticated to entertain the notion of anyone here, I think, and you can't stand nobles even on a good day."

"She spends so much time _talking_ to them," Ser Cullen shudders in his vestments, all of his lines etched in horror. "I don't know how she doesn't go mad! They never stop, Lady Bethany, it's—yeurgh. I'd rather not think about it, if it's all the same."

"That's why I said _not her_ , Cullen. She's not your type, anyway. Mm, I suppose there's no point in mentioning Lady Nightingale, is there?"

The look that Ser Cullen deigns to bestow upon her is so deeply betrayed that Bethany can't keep from laughing, and it echoes through her lungs for the long moments before it chimes through the air.

"If you are _quite_ done," Ser Cullen says, snippily.

It only sets Bethany off a second time.

He sniffs, and waits for her to finish; it is with deep resignation that he does so.

"Do you even _know_ any other women?" Bethany asks, curiously, when she's finally regained some semblance of control. "And no, the Lady Herald doesn't count. Unless I was wrong, and whoever it is isn't a woman?"

"She's—no—I—it's—!"

"So, definitely a _she_ , then," Bethany nods. She pats his arm again. Not everyone grew up with Marian debauching women all over the place, Bethany has to remind herself. Most people never come close to that level of blasé about other people's relationships, or, frankly, that kind of brazen nonchalance.

Snow crunches beneath boots, and a hand curls around her waist.

Bethany doesn't start.

(Oh, _there_ he is. She was beginning to wonder when he'd turn up.)

"Hello, love," Alistair says. "What are we talking about?"

"I'm trying to guess who Cullen's got a crush on," Bethany tells her husband conversationally as she leans into his chest. There's ice in his beard from his breath, and it crunches away. Alistair settles himself around her, plops his chin down on the top of her head, and surveys Ser Cullen like some sort of mad experiment.

Alistair crooks an eyebrow. "Can't imagine that's going well, you don't have to listen to him moan about her. It's that mad Ostwick noble's twin, isn't it? The mage, what's-her-name. Eve? Ellyn?"

Ser Cullen turns the colour of ruddy cement.

(It would be very attractive if Ser Cullen were a road. As he is not a road, it is far less so, and Bethany bites down on the threatening mirth. Alistair's fingers dig sharply into her waist. This only makes it harder, as Bethany is _ticklish_ and Alistair is not above using this against her.)

"I am _not_ attracted to Lady Evelyn. She's just very—!"

" _Lady_ Evelyn, is she?" Alistair cuts him off. The smug grin is nearly palpable.

(Alistair is _incorrigible_.)

Bethany turns her face into his throat, shakes her head into his pulse. Of course, he's enjoying this. _Of course_. "Don't be terrible," she says in a whisper meant to be heard, "He'll run off if you're terrible!"

Alistair snorts amusement. "If I'm terrible, so are you."

Ser Cullen really doesn't deserve any of this. He watches the pair of them whisper loudly, carelessly, back and forth to one another, and if he's not rolling his eyes at their predictability, Bethany might eat her stave.

She and Alistair _are_ fairly predictable, you see.

But when Bethany actually catches Ser Cullen's gaze, she realizes that he _isn't_ rolling his eyes, not at all. He looks—stricken, as though it hurts him to see them like this. As though he craves it, the softness between them.

She gentles. Ser Cullen is alone.

"What's she like?" Bethany finds the words in her mouth unbidden.

Ser Cullen blinks. "Pardon?"

"Lady Evelyn," says Bethany. "What's she like?"

She feels Alistair shift against her, smooth slide of muscle, thumb pressing abruptly into her hip. He doesn't need to say anything; Alistair holds his grudges the way he holds cards, too tight, white-knuckled in the grip, but kept low so that no one can ever see if they're not exactly looking for them. And here, again: if he forgives Ser Cullen before the decade is out, it'll be half a miracle. He gives just a little, and that's mostly only for Bethany herself. She allows him to take more of her weight, and they're both glad for it.

"She is—she's very quiet," Ser Cullen says, haltingly. There's a catch in his breath s he searches for the words, and Bethany hears echoes of her own self trying to describe Alistair to her mother, all those many long years ago in a village not so far away. They'd had other considerations at the time, other fears, darkspawn and spiders and templars, all, the nightmares half slick and spilling down over their open hands. There'd been Father's death and Carver's attitude and Marian's, well, _everything_ …

Bethany stumbling over her words about the kindest, silliest templar boy she'd ever met was the only thing she'd ever been sure of.

It's just funny to see it reflected in someone else, is all.

"—her sister is mental, I can hardly say a word to her but she has—she has the sweetest smile," Ser Cullen exhales, carefully, slowly, as though he's confessing something sacred. "I've never seen anyone smile quite like that."

Alistair _huffs_ , half irritation and half something else that Bethany can't place. Understanding, maybe? He'd said very nearly the exact same thing, once. About smiles, and staying, and goodness.

Some of the animosity fades as they go at one another the way old friends do, but the current of it remains simmering beneath the surface. Bethany allows it to settle over her shoulders like an old blanket worn through with holes to let the sun in, and it's a little easier.

It's been a long time since the sharpness in Alistair's eyes has washed away, but it's gone for now.

And healing is a thing that takes such a long time.

"But I suppose it doesn't matter," Ser Cullen says, quietly, finally. "What she's like. She's—it will all be over, soon."

The three of them look up into the Breach.

It has looked never more like a wound.

But the mage rebellion has joined the Inquisition. So perhaps Ser Cullen isn't wrong; perhaps the Lady Herald will sew the sky shut, and save them all. Perhaps they'll be able to go back to Kirkwall, and perhaps Varric won't look so old anymore. Perhaps her children won't grow up in the middle of a war; perhaps things will end peacefully. Perhaps they'll all grow old and happy, and perhaps heaven won't need to know any of their names.

Perhaps.

Maker, Bethany prays that it's not too much to ask for.

—

After the sun sets, Bethany burrows into Alistair's side, warm at last.

Haven is very still around them. The stars outside twinkle over the Frostbacks closer than Bethany has ever seen them, a brilliant diamond spill that illuminates the sky in long sparkling rivers of glowing light. She watches them through slat of window for a while, listening to her husband breathe. He's not asleep, not quite yet, and the susurrus of his movement whispers over her skin like an old memory.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks, finally, cheek pillowed against his chest.

"Hm?"

"You trapped me against the wall in the _Chantry_ , Alistair."

"I don't recall you protesting, dear," he says, and his smug grin is so loud Bethany can hear it. Oh, Andraste, he's going to be incorrigible about this. "In fact, if I'm remembering correctly, you seemed rather pleased with the entire situation—"

Bethany rolls her eyes. " _Not_ the point."

"There's another point? What happened to the first one?"

"Alistair," Bethany says, and her voice is flat.

"Ye-es?"

"If you don't want to talk about it, you can just say so," Bethany tells him. She turns her face so that she can press her mouth to his skin. A kiss, right in the center of his chest, easy as breathing. When he smiles down at her, her cheeks pink up just a little; he still manages to turn her to mush, and always without even having to try. "But I'm here to listen if you need me to."

Alistair exhales, pain sharp in the lungs, slow and deliberate.

And Bethany waits for him, steady as she ever is.

"Do you remember—" Alistair starts, stops, swallows hard. Tries again. "Do you—before we left Kirkwall, your sister went to a party."

"My sister went to lots of parties," Bethany says, which is the truth. Marian _did_ go to lots of parties, and some of them even involved living people. Not all of them (not even most of them, perhaps; or if the parties had started out with living people, they hadn't always ended that way), but some.

"A party at Chateau Haine," Alistair says. Quiet. Patient.

"Oh." And Bethany's mind skips back through time, over the hills and valleys of memory to Kirkwall's white stone, Hightown painted pale blue at night and her older sister coming home, hip cocked and smiling alarmingly, a wild look in her eye. They'd robbed the Empress' cousin blind and somehow managed to get away with it, not that Bethany knows the details.

It had been what had come afterwards that had shaken her world.

Except it hadn't even been her world. It had been Alistair's, and Alistair shaking in their bedroom in the silent carmine dark, his hands clamped so tight around her waist that it was like he thought she might disappear if he didn't hold on tight. Like his whole world had fallen out from under him. Like it was going to keep falling out from under him, and he didn't have anything else to hold.

"Your nephew? Is that—?"

Alistair nods, face grim.

"Oh, Alistair," Bethany murmurs. She reaches up to touch his jaw, the grave pull of his mouth aching in her chest. "That's…"

"Well," he says, forcing cheer, though it doesn't reach his eyes. He leans closer into her palm, and Bethany thinks he doesn't even realize he's doing it. "At least now we know for certain your sister _does_ have our best interests at heart! Or yours, at least."

"Quit that," Bethany says, frowning. "You know she cares about you, too. And you're deflecting, I thought we were past that."

He sighs. "I'm sorry."

Sometimes he can't help it. The past always does enjoy bubbling up and ruining things, especially when it's such an ugly past; his childhood and hers, too. But it's hard, because they've both spent so much time climbing to the edges with fingernails worn bloody, scraped away down to the bone. Neither of them really understood how to be people, and maybe they still don't.

(Two steps forwards, one step back.)

Bethany understands that.

"Don't be," she says.

She means: _I know that it's hard_.

Alistair must hear the unspoken words, because he makes a tiny choked-off noise in the back of his throat, half crackling disbelief, half delirious gratitude. He clings to her just a little too tight, edging into hurt, but Bethany lets him.

Andraste knows, he's had a difficult day.

Alistair exhales heavily into her hair. He doesn't say anything else, only holds onto her for a long, long time. His arms tighten and release with the rhythm of his heart. Bethany counts every breath.

"Better?" she asks, when the shaking finally stops.

He nods. It seems as though everything has drained out of him, and he has no words left. Alistair allows himself to be herded to bed, submits to Bethany's direction with an almost obscene relief, _Cracks in the armour_ , she thinks, _spilling golden light_.

There's more to talk about, but there's always more to talk about.

And frankly, they can talk about it tomorrow. Or the next day, or the next, or the next after that. For the love of the Maker, they can talk about it after they've dealt with the hole in the sky! They can deal with it when the real world isn't entirely so pressing. When there aren't demons cleaving through rips in the air. When people aren't starving. When—

When the war is over. They can deal with their own demons, then. With each other's, too.

As they always have.

Bethany carefully presses her mouth to the top of Alistair's head. He doesn't stir.

It's fine.

They just need to survive right now.

—

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.

.

.

.

 _tbc_.


	4. treading faded tracks

**disclaimer** : disclaimed.  
 **dedication** : to sonya and emily and chloe, for all the love through all the years.  
 **notes** : there's a lot of mal in this chapter, but seriously, have you ever met a determined 5yo? they do what they want.  
 **notes2** : i lifted the Chasind gods from the _Nevernight Chronicles_ , by Jay Kristoff. go read them.  
 **notes3** : _good at loving you_ — mother mother.

 **title** : treading faded tracks  
 **summary** : There is a new Commander in Haven. — templar!au part ii; Alistair/Bethany.

—

.

.

.

.

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The enchanters take turns minding the children, and today it is the Grand Enchanter's turn.

Grand Enchanter Fiona is a slim elven woman, dark-hair and dark-eyed, half a head shorter than Bethany is. She wears blue trimmed with fennec fur, heavy enough to endure Haven's high-mountain chill with little trouble; it's not yet wet with springtime rain, thank the Maker.

She stares out at the swarm of children with a level, measuring gaze, and Bethany doesn't know what to make of her.

Because it's not just the mage children that the Grand Enchanter has agreed to mind.

It's _all_ of Haven's children.

Malcolm hangs back at his mother's hip while his sisters run wild. Bethany tries not to worry about it; her son still doesn't speak as much he ought, and he has no desire to spend time with children his own age. He's far more inclined to go bother Varric for stories, or toddle his way to the Chantry to find Alistair, or stay close to Bethany herself. Her son is very careful about how he expends his limited time and energy, and on those he's willing to expend it _on_. It's a little spooky, in a five-year-old boy.

"I think I indulge you, too much," Bethany tells him, over the din.

"I'm fine, Mummy," Malcolm says, shaking his little head. His dark curls catch the sun. "Lia and Rina're too big."

"They'll let you play with them if you want, darling, you know that," Bethany says.

"I know," he says, and then proceeds to make not one single move towards the thong of children throwing snowballs down by the lake's edge. Liana and Carina are holding court with some of the older girls, play-acting what looks like a dramatized version of the Lady Herald's escape from the Fade.

Malcolm, Bethany gets the sense, is _profoundly_ uninterested in what his sisters are up to.

Instead, he slips his hand into hers, and tugs her forward. Bethany goes easy; Malcolm is so little, and it's so easy to make him happy. It strikes her, sometimes, that she's built inside herself a violin crescendo of softness about her children. And how she'd do anything for them, anything at all, no matter how much damage it does. No matter how much danger comes, no matter what they ask for, not matter who they become, no matter what they are. No matter.

(She wonders, absently, if this was what it was like for her own mother.)

Her son leads her across the snow-covered lakebank with a single-mindedness that Bethany forgets he's capable of. Malcolm picks his way without care, but never stumbles. He's got that look on his face that Alistair gets, sometimes; the same furrowed brow, concentrated on something that Bethany can't see.

The world does seem to love her son the same way it loves her older sister.

And Bethany is glad, for that. If the world loves Malcolm the same way it loves Marian, then he's likely to survive anything anyone can throw at him. There's a kind of luck to the Hawke family, and her son has it, too. Not always good luck, but luck all the same.

In this vein, Malcolm leads her straight to the Grand Enchanter.

Andraste, but maybe Bethany ought not be so surprised.

Malcolm looks up at the elven woman, and says, quite clearly, "Hello."

The Grand Enchanter does not visibly startle. But as her gaze focuses on Mal, her eyes widen just the slightest bit, and the colour drains from her face. It could be the cold, Bethany thinks, but it could also be something else entire.

Circle mages aren't allowed to keep their children, after all.

The Grand Enchanter clears her throat. "Hello. And who are you, little one?"

Mal doesn't answer her. He looks up at Bethany, and tugs at her hand. She isn't sure why her son wants her to witness this exchange, but he very clearly does: so long as he doesn't let go, she knows Mal wants her to stay, and so Bethany remains rooted to the spot.

Her son doesn't usually like talking to strangers, and when he makes the effort, sometimes he needs an interpreter.

"His name is Malcolm," Bethany supplies, when the silence has hung too long. "He wanted to come say hello."

"Malcolm," Mal says, nodding. "I'm five."

The Grand Enchanter glances at Bethany out of the corner of her eye, assessing. Bethany shrugs just the tiniest bit; in another world, she might have known this woman well. In this one, she has a son whose eyes are too old for a five-year-old's face and who isn't excellent at making friends his own age, and Bethany is beginning to suspect that these two things are more intricately tied together than she wants to think they are.

"You're very tall," says the Grand Enchanter.

Malcolm seems to have gotten over his need for a translator. "My mummy is a mage. You're a mage, too."

Grand Enchanter Fiona blinks. "Yes, I am."

Malcolm nods, as though he's rather pleased to have this confirmed. He straightens his spine, extracts his palm from Bethany's, and promptly attaches himself to the Grand Enchanter's side instead. "Mummy, you can go now."

"Oh?" Bethany asks him. "Am I being dismissed?"

"Yes," Mal says, as imperiously as a five-year-old can.

"Shouldn't we _ask_ Grand Enchanter Fiona if we can take up all her time, darling?" Bethany asks, more as a reminder than anything else. "She can't mind us all day."

"Not _you_ , Mummy, just me!"

" _Malcolm_."

Mal sighs, frowning, deeply put-upon. He's managed to twist his fingers already into the fabric of the Grand Enchanter's skirt; Maker's breath, he's going to be impossible to extract, should the Grand Enchanter not want a sticky five-year-old attached to her hip for the rest of the day. Bethany doesn't want to think about it, because she can already hear the indignation, and it's giving her a headache. But still, she can't let him get away with things like this. He's going to end up more entitled than he already is, and neither she nor Alistair has time for _that_.

Bethany purses her mouth at her son, and waits. He can use his own words!

"Mummy, can I stay?" Mal asks.

"I'm not the one you need to ask that to, Malcolm. And where are your manners? What would your Gran say?"

Her son makes a face. He tugs on the Grand Enchanter's skirt the way he does when he wants someone's attention, and he is either unsure of their name, or hasn't made of habit of considering them worthy of a name yet. "Can I stay with you?"

"Malcolm! Manners!"

"Can I stay with you today?" he tries again. " _Please_?"

There's something chest-achingly helpless on the Grand Enchanter's face. She won't say _no_ , Bethany can see that already. Can't. The woman's already fallen under Mal's bright-eyed, inquisitive, heart-strickening spell. She might be watching Haven's children, but that will only be a fraction of her attention. The rest will be on Bethany's darling, beloved, _problem-child_ son.

Andraste's flaming pyre. Bethany exhales heavily. "I'm sorry, Grand Enchanter. I hope it's not an imposition? He's had to sway once he's made up his mind."

"Non, non, not at all," the Grand Enchanter says. Her hands hover over the top of Malcolm's head, the knobs and knuckles of her hands flexing. Maybe she's not used to a child like Mal; Bethany wouldn't blame her, if only because most children simply aren't _like_ Mal.

But maybe it's loss, too.

And maybe that's worse.

"Will you be good for the Grand Enchanter and not get in her way?" Bethany kneels down to ask him. He understands better when people are at his own level, Bethany's found. He listens better, at least.

"Mummy!"

"Malcolm, promise me."

He huffs. "I'll be good for the Grand Enchanter."

Bethany kisses his forehead. "I know you will," she murmurs, because she does know that he will. Malcolm, for all that he can be hard to sway, is still her son. Alistair's son, too. She pushes into standing. "Grand Enchanter—"

"Fiona," the Grand Enchanter says. "It is less formal, Madame Hawke."

"Bethany, please. Thank you for looking after them," Bethany says. She tips her head out at the children still playing by the bank, at Liana, at Carina. Her girls. "All of them."

Grand Enchanter Fiona opens her mouth, makes a soft sound. It sounds like it hurts.

(A heart torn asunder.)

Bethany will never know what Grand Enchanter Fiona was going to say. Mal tugs the older woman's attention away from Bethany, to the tiny green flame cupped between his palms. He's so young to have this kind of control, but Malcolm never learned to fear his magic the way that Bethany had at her father's knee. Perhaps the lack of it contributes, but—

Bethany was six. Solona was four. Carina was three.

The magic reaches through the Fade earlier all the time.

It's not easy to leave Malcolm with the Grand Enchanter, but Bethany manages it. He'd get into more mischief with Ser Cullen or the twins, Bethany reasons, and _certainly_ more with Varric. The Grand Enchanter _is_ the Grand Enchanter, and there's responsibility enough there to give Bethany the space to breathe easy for a little while.

A little time alone is better than no time alone.

Especially when it's not really time alone, at all.

Bethany hurries through Haven's outskirts, past the stables, past where Ser Cullen is still training the new templar recruits, past the gates. This time of day, Alistair's already left the Chantry for the pier on the other side of the lake; knowing her husband, he's quietly tromping through the trees with his work for hope of some peace and quiet. Past the old apothecary's place—it's the only place left uninhabited, outside of Haven's walls as it is—and through the gap in the trees to break out into blinding golden-afternoon sunlight.

Oh, Andraste, there he is.

Alistair leans back against one of the giant boulders scattered along the bank, here. He's got his arms tucked behind his head, eyes closed, his face tilted up towards the sun. If Bethany didn't know better, and if he wasn't standing up, she'd say that he were asleep. The snow is worn away form the path he's walked through it, and Bethany follows it easily, her tread near-silent over the golden-brown dirt.

"I was wondering if you'd come find me," he says, loud enough for Bethany to hear. "I saw you with the Grand Enchanter. I take it Mal's made a friend?"

Bethany thinks that her sister might always be the one to come find her, but Alistair is the one who always knows where she _is_.

"Something like that," Bethany says.

For a long minute she just looks at him. Alistair looks much as he did the first time she'd ever seen him: he's still tall and broad across the shoulder, short ochre hair and impertinent crooked grin. He's even still got the smattering of freckles. But time has taken its toll, too, and Maker knows, she can count the ways. His amour's different, not a Sword of Mercy in sight and dressed comfortably, now, in warm layers of leather and wool beneath heavy Inquisition chainmail. There are crows' feet at the corners of his eyes, and she knows that he's got scars crisscrossed all over that he didn't have when they were young and in love. The stress of Lothering and Kirkwall and now the Breach have left their marks on her husband. It stings that she's not able to wipe them all away.

There are some hurts, Bethany's learned, that can't _be_ wiped away.

"C'mere, Beth," Alistair says, at last.

Bethany allows herself to be reeled forwards by the pull of his body. It's an old feeling, familiar with want and warmth, and she steps into it slowly, savouring the sensation. They may not be young, anymore, but in love? Oh, _in love_ is still a song Bethany knows.

Alistair's arms come up to hook around her waist, pull her close, and finally, finally he opens his eyes.

"Hi," Bethany says, smiling up at him.

"Hi," Alistair says, so soft and so fond. "Did you have a good day?"

"I suppose so. Aren't you cold?" Bethany asks. "How long have you been out here?"

"Eh, it's not bad. I've someone to warm me up, don't I?"

"Flirt."

"I try," Alistair says, grinning. He ducks his head down, blows a raspberry into the line of her hair, and then has _audacity_ to rub the tip of his freezing nose against her skin. "See? You're warming me up already!"

Bethany _squeaks_. "You _are_ cold, quit that!"

"No, I think I'm good here, dear. Stop squirming, would you, you're going to hurt yourself—"

Bethany does not stop squirming, and Alistair gets a face full of curls for his trouble. They're both laughing already, half-thawed, half-cracked, Bethany giggling into Alistair's throat and Alistair chuckling into her hair. It's an innocent thing, being close for the simple sake of being close.

And then they go tumbling into the snow, because Bethany is ticklish, and Alistair is not above using this against her.

Alistair kisses her, mouth hot enough to burn away the sunlit chill, and Bethany lets him.

Time passes, though she couldn't say how much.

They lie in the snow for a while, Bethany tucked up on top of Alistair's chest, listening to each other breath. It should be far more uncomfortable than it is, what with the snow melting into their clothes and the freezing cold and the way they're quickly losing the sun. Nighttime comes quickly, in the mountains. They are probably both going to regret this profoundly when they both end up sick for it, but for now—

For now, it's nice.

"So," Alistair prompts. It feels like he's been working up to it, toying careful with her hair. "Mal made a friend?"

"Mmm," Bethany hums. "He was very insistent that Grand Enchanter Fiona pay attention to him."

"Did she?"

"Mm-hmm. She was very kind about it, actually. You know how he is."

Alistair snorts. They _both_ know how Malcolm is, when he gets an idea into that little head of his. It really is a good thing that the Grand Enchanter decided to humour him, else their son would be pestering her endlessly. Then again, now that she's given him an inch, Mal is liable to take a mile. He is endlessly crafty that way.

"Have we spoiled him?"

"No, I don't think so," Bethany says, thoughtful. The rhythmic tugging of Alistair's hands in her hair is a gentle lull into complacency. "I think he's a little more _aware_ than most boys his age, but I don't think he's spoiled. Just loved."

"Good."

"Why?"

"No reason," Alistair shakes his head. He's concentrating very hard on a spot left of Bethany's ear. "Just—tomorrow, Beth. We're headed for the Breach tomorrow."

"So soon?"

"The mages are ready," Alistair says, slow. _We have the power we need_.

"That's… Alistair, I—"

"No, I know," he says. He reaches up to brush her curls out of her face. No gauntlets, today, only gloves. Bethany shouldn't miss the bite of metal but she does, because at least when there's silverite gauntlets on his hands and the bite of metal on her skin, there's a layer of metal between _his_ skin and the world. "I'm going down there, love."

She wants to say _what, no, no you can't, not without me, please, not without me_.

But she doesn't.

This is what they're here for, after all. To close the Breach, and then to go home. That's why they're out here, on this godforsaken bit of mountain, surrounded by demons and nightmares and who knows what else. There are wolves in the woods. Bethany has listened to them howl in the darkness.

Bethany exhales, instead.

"Who's going with you?"

"Cullen, Cassandra," Alistair says. "The Herald. Leliana, if she's a mind for it. A few others."

"Varric?" Bethany asks, even though she already knows the answer to that. Yes, Varric. Yes, Solas. Yes, the Iron Bull, that giant Qunari what reminds her of the Arishok. Yes, the Warden, yes, the arrow-mad little blonde elf. Yes, the Tevinter with the mustache. Yes, the Cadash girl. Yes, the Trevelyan twins. Yes, Alistair.

Yes, anyone who can help.

"Probably."

Air hisses out through her teeth. "You don't want me there, do you?"

Alistair closes his eyes again. Takes a long, slow breath. "You—no. I know you think it's—but I—you—" he exhales, breathes in again, "—you need to stay safe, Beth. I need you to stay safe. You, and the twins, and Mal—I need you all to be safe."

Bethany could protest.

Maker knows, she could.

(And she'd have a leg to stand on, too. Force magic is nothing to sneer at, especially in the quantities that Bethany happens to have it in. Barriers and violent death in equal measure, is force magic. And if need be—if it really, truly came down to it—she'd be there to save his life. Bethany knows that she has a leg to stand on in this argument, and she knows that Alistair would, if pressed, likely acquiesce. He doesn't like going without his back watched, either.)

But again, she doesn't.

It's just that it's not a difficult thing to understand. If Alistair knows she and the little ones are safe, he won't get half so distracted as he would, otherwise. He'll be able to throw himself into the blood and battle, entire, won't have to hold anything back. Magekiller. Her husband will do what he must, when he must, and he'll be better for it if she's not there.

Bethany hates it. Could be sick to her stomach with it. Could scream and sob and wail with it.

And though all these things are true, the fact of the matter is that she _understands_ it.

"When you get back," Bethany says, very carefully, "I am not going to let your out of my sight for a _week_."

"Only a week? Beth, love, I think you're going soft—"

Bethany covers his mouth. Her voice is very quiet. After everything, after qunari and darkspawn and Kirkwall, she cannot lose him now. He cannot die on her _now_. She will not tolerate it. "I mean it, Alistair. Come back to me. Please."

Alistair's eyes go very soft. He kisses her palm.

"I will," he says.

Bethany can only pray that he does.

—

Alistair is gone before the sun has entirely risen.

He doesn't even say goodbye; he kisses Bethany once, bright and sweet on the mouth, and then he's out the door. It's a two-hour pilgrimage from the village to the temple when the weather's fair. It was a quiet night, clear as starlight, colder than the Korcari Wilds in the dead of winter.

But they're moving an army into the valley. Two hours says nothing of the time it's going to take to station the mages 'round the Breach, nor get the troops up and awake, nor whatever demons the tear in the sky's going to throw at the Inquisition in the meantime. There's something almost _sentient_ about the damn thing.

Sometimes, it feels like whatever's beyond the Veil is _watching_.

And so Bethany suspects it's going to take more than two hours.

When the sky outside the window is palest pink, Bethany rises from bed to go make herself a cup of tea. It's not the same as the tea she'd grown used to in Kirkwall; the water in the mountains is different—cleaner, somehow, but with an acrid tang that tastes a bit like what unfettered, untamed wild magic feels like—but it boils up just the same. She sits at the rickety table with a tankard steaming between her palms, and watches with an even temper as the sun comes up over the Frostbacks' distant peaks.

She doesn't wake the children. Better they have a lie-in, today.

Frankly, Bethany could use the time to rest, too.

But eventually the girls creep out from beneath the covers, lured by the promise of a clear day and no chores. Malcolm sleeps a little longer, even as his older sisters plop themselves down on either of Bethany's sides, Carina trailing a quilt over her shoulder.

"Are you two hungry?"

Carina looks at her twin and shrugs. Liana does the talking for the both of them. "I guess so?"

"Sop in warm milk?" Bethany asks. She rises from the table to go stoke the fire. The twins huddle together like old habit, wordlessly tucking the quilt around themselves. They both hate being cold, her girls. Too much like their mother for their own good.

Lia wrinkles her face. "Again?"

"Would you rather I make hotcakes?" Bethany raises her eyebrows. "We have some honey left over from the last comb."

"Why? Is today special?" Lia squints. "Did we do something wrong?"

"Stop asking _why_ , gobermouch!" Carina hisses under her breath, elbowing her sister sharply within the safe confines of the quilt, as though Bethany somehow can't _see_ the motion. "When's the last time we had _honey_?"

"Three days ago, when Uncle Varric was—"

"Lia! _Mother's_ here!"

Bethany watches them squabble, faintly amused. Oh, she knows _all about_ Varric sneaking the twins honey-bread, but she's not about to ruin their fun. "Do you have something to tell me, girls?"

"No!" the twins chorus. They glance at each other, and then Lia says, a little abashed, "Hotcakes with honey would be perfect. Is there any of Gran's jam…?"

Bethany watches them droop against one another. They're both still half asleep, aren't they? Andraste, it's half a miracle they're even out of bed. They're her darlings, though, and an ache swells in Bethany's chest so sweet that she thinks she might cry. She kisses each of their heads in passing; they're hardly aware of her, for all that she's put fresh-warmed milk down in tin cups in front of them.

They don't really come out of it until there's food in front of them, and Bethany's sitting comfortable with her tea across the table.

And then they fall on it like wild animals.

 _Just like Carver_ , Bethany thinks, lips crooked into a smile. "That was very polite."

"Suh'rry Muh'thrr," Lia gets out around a hotcake the size of her head. How on earth did she manage to get the whole thing inside her mouth? Bethany watches as her daughter chews, swallows, tries again. "I'm—we're sorry, that was—'Draste, we're lucky Father's not here. D'you want some?"

"No, Lia," Bethany smiles, chin in hand. "It's fine, I'm just teasing."

Lia turns faintly pink, and goes back to scarfing down the hotcakes.

It takes the twins all of ten minutes to entirely demolish the stack. If Bethany hadn't seen the pair of them perform the same feat every single time they were presented with food, she'd be shocked. But this isn't anything new, and they're still growing. She's not about to starve them of the energy they so clearly require.

And once they're finished, they're both a little more awake.

It seems to dawn on them at the exact same time that _something_ is missing.

"…Mother, where's Father?"

Most mornings, Alistair wakes the twins to say goodbye. Not every morning, but most; the mornings he doesn't wake them are the mornings he doesn't have anywhere to be, and they'll stumble out of bed to find their parents sitting quietly together, enjoying the early-morning stillness.

This morning, very clearly, is not like the others.

Bethany sighs. "Your father's gone down to the temple."

"What?" Liana says. " _Why_?"

"They're going to try to close the Breach, darling."

Lia looks deeply troubled by this notion, but it also looks like she's struggling to find the right words to properly articulate it. Bethany understands; Maker knows that she's feeling rather a lot the same, at this particular moment. It's an easy thing to ignore, when she's busy with the twins, but the second she pauses to just _breathe_ …

Bethany shakes herself of it. This isn't really the time.

"Are you upset with him? Father?"

Bethany tilts her head. Only her oldest would think to ask a question like that; sometimes, Lia is so much like Alistair that Bethany is nearly bowled over by it. "No, I'm not. Should I be?"

Liana shrugs. "He's always leaving to save the world. Doesn't that make you upset?"

There are some things that you never tell your children. There are some things that you simply _can't_ tell your children, because they're either too big or too complicated or simply too _personal_ to tell them. Too difficult to explain. Too hard to say _I'm upset, but not in a way you'd understand_. Impossible to clarify the _not in a way I can put into words_.

Perhaps it's a disservice to her daughters, to trust them so little. But it's still not something she can tell them.

It's just—too heavy.

And so Bethany shakes her head. "I worry about him. But I'm not upset, no."

Lia nods, face furrowed as she works through the mental loops. Carina is in much the same boat. The pair of them pick at the remains of the hotcakes, conferring silently in the way that twins do. Golden-dark heads together, the quilt pulled ever tighter around their shoulders; sitting there in the morning sunshine they're a perfect blend of everything that Bethany loves most in the world, and again, her chest is stricken with it.

Bethany doesn't know what deal she made with the Maker to have them, but she'd make it over and over, and make it gladly.

A crackling _rumble_ tears through the air.

Bethany's breath goes out of her lungs.

When the Breach opened, all those months ago, it had felt like she was being torn in half a million times over. Unimaginable, unending pain. The sudden _wrench_ in the Veil had left a hole inside of her heart that no non-mage could understand; Malcolm and Carina both had cried for days.

This feels like the inverse of that.

The sutures are slap-dash, quick, messy.

But they sew the hole inside shut, and for the first time in a long time, Bethany breathes easily. But it hurts, too, aches the way a bone healed wrong and then reset aches. She slumps against the table at the exact same time her daughter does, and the exact same moment that Malcolm wakes.

"Mother, did—did you, was that, it—" Carina gasps, thin. "Mummy, I—"

"Shhh, darling, I'm right here," Bethany reaches out to gather the girls into her arms. Carrying the both of them is no small feat; they're both only head shorter than Bethany herself is, but they're young, bird-light bones, and it's nothing to sweep them up and transport them into the bedroom where Mal's making the kind of sounds he always makes before he cries.

"Mummy?" Mal whimpers. "M'head—!"

Lia and Rina cling to one another, the pair of them trembling. If Bethany didn't know better, she'd think that Lia can feel the lack of the Breach, too, but that would make no sense. She glances out through the window to find that the sky swirls, clouds blown across the blank expanse of the Maker's seat.

Andraste, it's like the Breach never existed, at all.

"What's going _on_?" Mal asks, plaintive.

Bethany exhales, and allows a tiny blossom of hope into her chest.

"I think we're going to be alright."

—

The Inquisition's forces don't make their way back to Haven until after the sun has already begun to sink beyond the mountains. The world is washed in crimson and gold, and still, the village welcomes back their Herald with wide-open arms.

The Lady Herald allows them the joy of it, with only minimal obvious discomfort.

The few dead are carried with reverential hands, accepted into the village to be sent back to the Maker on pyres alight with woodsmoke and endless gratitude. The flames will burn for days, Bethany already knows, and the waves of cheer rise slowly, louder and louder with every moment that the crowd drinks down. How slim her shoulders, how heavy the weight they carry. Their Herald, oh, their _Herald_ —come back to them when no one else has, when the Maker himself has turned from his children—

Lady Lavellan is Andraste reborn, to these people.

To all people who follow her, now. They stare at her out of the corners of their eyes, awed beyond measure. Bethany does not know if the Herald truly comprehends what she's done.

Hope is so dangerous a drug.

But Bethany has eyes for no one save her husband, lost amid the swirl and sway of the beginnings of a celebration that will last long into the night. He's shouting, she can _hear_ him shouting over the seething of the throng—

"Maker's breath, _there_ you are!"

Bethany finds herself swept up in a pair of well-beloved arms, and being suddenly and _thoroughly_ kissed.

Oh, _Alistair_.

"We're alive, we're bloody well alive! You're alive, I'm alive, we're alive, we're _alive_ ," he's saying into his mouth, a mantra, _a-live a-live a-live_ , the rhythm of it pounding as a heart, thundering through her blood. It's all Bethany can do to hold on, to be kissed and kissed and kissed beneath the crush of people, the cheering and screaming and laughing of a thousand people ringing in her ears.

The music has already started, and it is what she will remember with most clarity. Later, when everything's over, when they're out in the snow in the middle of a blizzard, she will remember the music.

For now, there are flashes:

Varric, grinning widely over a tankard of ale at Lady Cassandra, despite everything. Liana and Carina looped around Ser Cullen, laughing and clinging to his armour, fervent despite the cold. Ser Cullen himself, drooping slightly, the startled pleasure that something he's touched hasn't fallen to pieces and Alistair, grudging, shoving Ser Cullen's shoulder the way they used to do. Malcolm toddling his way to the Grand Enchanter, with an easing of the exhaustion to her eyes. The Lady Herald, waving awkwardly, with her stave still strapped to her back. Children being entertained by the _pop-crack!_ of magic, fireworks set off bright into the sky. The sparkle of the stars, twinkling, keepers of secrets and dreams, safeguards against the night.

Alistair, kissing her over and over, every time he has a spare minute.

And above it all, above the cheer and the relief and the palpable _happiness_ that sings through the air, there is the music.

Plucked strings in crescendo, notes rolling into one another, flickering shadows from the dancing and the stomping of feet. Fereldans and their wildlings, the Orlesian repose, the Marcher restraint; it's all lost to the glittering skeins of melody.

It's so bright that the night doesn't seem so dark.

And then the music changes.

Bethany is curled in Alistair's lap, drowsing, Malcolm tucked between them and the girls fed a tall tale or two sprawled at Varric's feet, enraptured. They're all a little loose-limbed, soft-headed and sweet from celebration and perhaps a little too much mead. Alistair's mouth is pressed, smiling, to Bethany's throat.

Haven's warning bells begin to _clang_. Across the mountain lights come on, torches far in the distance, hundreds and hundreds of torches. They flicker up and down the mountain like stars, twinkling. The far-away rumble of thousands of feet stamping through snow echoes, swamping over them, salt and rust.

"Aw, _shit_ ," says Varric, which does sum it up nicely.

Alistair and Bethany look at one another. The firelight makes monsters of them both, hollow-cheeked and hollow-eyed, refugees of yet another war.

Andaste's pyre, when will enough be _enough_?

"The Chantry," Alistair says. He extracts himself from beneath her, careful as he ever is. "I'll meet you there."

"Are you going to find Ser Cullen?" Bethany finds herself asking, very quietly. Malcolm is still small enough to bustle about just fine on her hip, and the girls are rousing. Varric has stopped speaking, after all, and only stares between Alistair and Bethany for long, horrible moments.

"I have to," Alistair says, grim. He glances at Varric. "Are you coming?"

"Shit, you really _do_ have a death wish," Varric says, but he's already pulled Bianca from her holster. "Yeah, kid, I'm coming. Let's go shout at Curly."

"Do we have to shout? It'll give him the wrong idea, he'll think I've forgiven him—"

"Haven't you?" asks Varric

"Like I've forgiven the darkspawn," Alistair flashes him a grin, but it's not a nice grin. He pauses for half a second, bends to brush his mouth against Bethany's cheek. "Be careful, love, will you?"

"Only if you are," Bethany murmurs, stands up on her toes to catch his mouth.

He grins again, but this time it's more real. A fleeting thing, and it'll have to be enough.

"Are you two going to be good for your mother?" Alistair asks the twins, flat at the end so that it doesn't sound like a question, more a statement of fact. The twins are blinking up at him sleepily, not entirely awake, still lulled into security by the presence of both their parents and Uncle Varric, and how very quiet their younger brother is.

"We're always good, Daddy," Lia yawns. She seems to shake the sleep off, just a little, even as Carina is still rubbing at her eyes. "What's going on? R'we going somewhere?"

Alistair glances at Bethany out of the corner of his eye, jaw tight. She forgets, sometimes, that Alistair loves the twins more than even Bethany does herself; she knows it half kills him, every time he has to leave them here with her to go off to do something else.

Like saving the world.

"I'll see you in the Chantry," Alistair says in a rush. He kisses the tops of the twins' heads, Malcolm, Bethany herself once more.

Andraste, it feels like he's always _leaving_.

(Maybe they're all always leaving.)

Alistair and Varric disappear into the gloom of the night. As they go, the last thing Bethany hears is the _snick_ of a sword unsheathed, and she knows that whatever happens tonight, Alistair will find his way back to her. He always does.

It calms her down enough to sort herself out.

"Carina, darling," Bethany says, looking her daughter straight in the face. Now that they're both awake, there is an alertness to her daughters that Bethany only rarely sees. "Do you remember what I said about barriers? What you can do with them?"

Carina nods. Her eyes are wide, brilliant, clear as clean water.

"Good. Stay close to your sister, and if anything happens, use what I told you," Bethany tells her. "If we get separated somehow, you two stay together, and I'll come find you whenever you are. Don't let go of each other, no matter what happens. Do you understand?"

"We'll be fine, Mother," Liana says for the both of them. They've twined their hands together, holding on so tight. It would take the end of the world to separate them.

And this is not the end of the world.

"Alright," Bethany exhales. She hitches Mal a little higher on her hip. "Come on, then."

Haven's populous is scattered and screaming already. But there's nowhere to go; whatever it out there has them trapped in the middle of the Frostback mountains in the middle of the night. A shock goes through the ground—siege weaponry already? Oh, Andraste—just as they round the bend to their little house. No locks, no keys, just a shack on the edge of town right next to the fortifications.

There's not much they need to bring. She knows that. There's not much of value; they brought so little to Haven in the first place. But her stave, Carver and Mother's letters, Alistair's ring, the little trinkets that Marian's sent along through Varric's network—those are important.

Bethany looks away for only half a second.

But gods, it's half a second too much.

The twins have darted outside, run off to Maker knows where. The explosion of dragon-fire rocks the whole world, and they— _they_ —come over the defenses.

The templars.

Three of them, monster-horrors, crystals growing out of their skulls. One of them trips in its vestments, sticks itself against the sharp point of the defenses. Bethany doesn't think, only moves: her magic slams him downwards, spears him through. The second she freezes then sets alight, a Maker's Fist to the head to keep him down.

But the last—

The templar's teeth gleam brilliant bloody crimson through the night. A two-handed greatsword in his palms, six feet long and meant to crush, dark with blood already, and the twins struggling to pull out of the debris of the other house and Bethany, halfway outside, _can't reach them from here_ —

"No," says Mal, quiet and firm.

The last templar's neck _snaps_.

The whole world ceases to breathe as the dead man falls, but only for a moment. Bethany remembers the blood in an arc across the wall, her son not yet a year old, the chill of the dwarf's body. Stark and damning in her memory, the sick red power swirls around Malcolm's shoulders.

And then it settles beneath his skin.

Oh, _Maker_.

The first second she has to spare, Bethany is going to be sick. How on the Maker's green earth—how is she going to—

But she doesn't have a second to spare.

The blood magic will have to wait.

Fire crackles low next door. The blaze eats through the rickety old wood fast, so fast.

The twins scramble out from underneath a wooden beam, just as the other end catches alight.

Bethany catches them mid-flight, swallowing down the horror. It can wait, it must wait, it _will_ wait. Malcolm clings tightly to her neck, and Ria and Lia keep hold of each other, tight at Bethany's waist.

She hushes the weeping, because she must.

And they make their way to the Chantry. There's howling on the wind, embers flickering in and out, and it is Lothering, and it is Kirkwall, and it is every single home that Bethany has ever left behind. There's no _time_ , no time to stop and help, the running is all they _have_ , the Chantry doors are just _there_ —

Bethany shoves the twins inside first.

They are more important than anything. Checking them over requires time that Bethany doesn't have, but she takes it regardless: Liana's got scrapes on her palms and her knees, the horrible mottled beginnings of a bruise all the way up her side. Carina has a gash across her cheek; it'll need healing, or it'll scar. In the shivering dim of the Chantry torches, this is what she finds.

Malcolm is most alright, beyond the shivering and beginnings of a cough.

"Do not," Bethany tells the twins, too rattled to scold, can only hold them tightly so that she doesn't fall apart, " _ever_ do that to me again."

Lia presses her face into Bethany's skirt.

"M'sorry, Mother," Carina says. "Please don't be angry. We thought—I thought there was a kitten, I could hear it, Lia came with me, it's not her fault—"

"We can talk about it later," Bethany says. She smooths a hand over Carina's cheek, fingers glittering with healing already. The skin knits. "Does anywhere else hurt? Your hands?"

Rina offers her palms, and Bethany goes about the bloody business of putting her family back together.

The Chantry moves around them as Haven's populous pours inside. Lady Montilyet hovers like a hummingbird at the back with her board and her candle, the Trevelyan twins speaking quietly to the Cadash girl, the runners from Sister Leliana's network vaulting back and forth. The Sister herself, greasing her bow, warming the wood, glancing upwards to catch Bethany's eye.

The Sister smiles a grim little smile.

 _We have lived difficult lives, have we not_ , that smile says.

Bethany only knows the barest bones of how the Sister ended up here. It's not so far from Lothering, not really, but in the intervening years—

Well, things have changed.

Bethany isn't so scared, anymore.

She almost wants to go over there, bring her children to introduce them to a woman that had only ever told stories and managed to distract Bethany for five minutes from the ever-present shaking inside of her, but maybe it's better than she doesn't. It's a long ways away, and neither Carina nor Malcolm has ever really had to… hide. Not the way most apostates do. Not the way Bethany had to.

And now there are no more apostates at all.

This is what Bethany is thinking about, when Alistair slams through the Chantry doors, wild-eyed and covered in ash, trailing wispy ghost-fingers of smoke that leave his shoulders like little nightmares. He's clutching his sword with a white-knuckled hand, his old templar shield slung vicious across his back.

Alistair scans the Chantry, tight and feral around the mouth.

When he finally catches sight of her, it's like his whole entire body crumples.

"Maker's breath," he says, raggedly, gasping for it. "You're alright."

There's no possible way that Bethany ought to be able to hear him. They're at opposite ends of the Chantry, and she's got a girl on each hip and a five-year-old boy with his arms wrapped around her neck. There might be a thousand people in the Chantry, for all that Bethany knows, it's that loud.

And still, she can hear him say the words.

Alistair sheaths his sword, and comes to bury himself in his family. His hands find Bethany curls and oh, she'd forgotten how desperate they both are, how sweet it is to be kissed as though she's the last good thing in the world. Through fire and flood, marrow and bone.

They kiss wildly until someone coughs rudely beside them.

"You two finished?" Varric asks, bemused, after they've detached from one another. "World's ending, kiddos, we can kiss and make up when shit's not exploding."

"You're one to talk," says Bethany, who would frankly prefer to be kissed some more, still a little dizzy. She needs her husband close, that's all. It takes work to keep from dragging him back, because when he's that close, Bethany has everyone she really loves within arms reach.

"I love you too, Sunshine, but uh, we should maybe go? I'm not kidding about the world ending, and if whatever's out there doesn't kill me, the Seeker'll finish the job."

("I _heard_ that, dwarf!" comes faintly from the Chantry doors. The Seeker cuts an imposing figure with her hands on her hips. Smoke comes off of her, too, just as it had Alistair; the poisoned-dragon lyrium-fire leaves long scorched marks across her armour.

Varric looks _hunted_ , and ducks behind the Hawke family for cover.)

"What are we going to do?" Bethany asks Alistair, very quietly. "Where do we have to _go_?"

He breathes out, very slowly. "Cullen's got sommat. I'm hoping it doesn't involve that mad Trevelyan girl, but the Herald—"

Something _awful_ twists in Bethany's stomach.

"She's staying, isn't she," Bethany says, voice too high and thin with distress, swallowing back bile. "Lady Lavellan, she's staying with—whatever that _thing_ is, isn't she? Alistair, tell me I'm wrong!"

He can't, and she _knows_ he can't.

Not without lying.

"Beth," Alistair catches her face in his hands, holds her still. "Breathe."

It brings her back.

Bethany sways into him a little, the almost-too-hot press of Malcolm between them, Carina and Liana still clinging careful to her sides. She exhales, trembling, trying to let it go.

"Alright," Bethany says. She bites down on her lip. "I'm alright."

"I figured," Alistair says. He grins down at her, mouth pulling up crooked. "We've a guide."

Bethany tips her head in question.

A guide?

When they were young, she and Alistair had developed a quiet kind of talking that they did when they didn't want other people around to know that they were talking. It's a careful draw of attention, the lines of the eyes, the deliberate tilt of the head.

Alistair points Bethany just over his shoulder and goes, _him_.

The boy is thin to emaciation, strange and pale, all of the knobs and knuckles of his body stretched out to ghostly imitations of themselves. He carries himself, oddly, much the way Marian does; the same stalker-prowl in the joints, the slow movement, the eye-blur quick daggers. He wears a hat that droops down over his eyes; he can't be older than twenty.

 _He's a child_ , Bethany doesn't say.

 _He's what we have_ , Alistair doesn't say, either.

And he is what they have.

He is _all_ they have.

The pale boy in his floppy hat leads the Inquisition down through an old pass. It is a forgotten place; none have trod here in decades. And yet he picks his way over and through as though he has done it every day of his life. The Inquisition moves slowly; they are many, and they are mostly non-combatants, and the boy clearly knows this because he slows his gait enough to be manageable. Ser Cullen's even left him alone, and has managed to dawdle his way to the Hawke orbit.

Varric is watching the boy lead with a crooked eyebrow.

"I suppose you've already adopted him, haven't you?"

"C'mon, Sunshine, you know me. I don't adopt just _anyone_ ," Varric scoffs, but he does it precisely in the way that means he _absolutely_ is going to adopt the boy and fuss over him 'til kingdom come; he'd said the exact same thing about Bethany's children. Given the ragged clothes and the frankly _appalling_ hat, Bethany thinks that the boy could certainly use some fussing.

Alistair is hand-in-hand with a twin on each side. But it's so late, and both girls are beginning to stumble, exhaustion and fear finally catching up. They've not yet seen ten summers.

Liana goes down first.

Ser Cullen catches her.

"It's—it's fine, I've got her, you take Carina," he says, only a little bit stiff, to Alistair. Bethany with Malcolm still in her arms, thinks that this might be the most endearing thing she's ever seen in her life.

Ser Cullen is just trying so _hard_. He's got Lia, and thank the Maker, she'll not struggle when they make it out into the snow, because eventually they _will_ make it out into the snow. This ancient old path can only go so far, and then the mountains will swallow them up.

Without a word, Alistair scoops Carina up off the ground.

Bethany will have to thank them for it, later.

—

The wind screams through the night.

Howling, vicious claws of freezing air shred through Bethany's cloak, yank her hood back and off. Malcolm huddles in close to her chest, a tiny little cough of unhappiness escaping him that Bethany knows about only because she can feel it vibrating against her throat. The snow stings where it hits exposed skin. She can hardly see a foot in front of her. Alistair is a blurred-out shadow in front of her, Carina huddled in his arms, and Ser Cullen behind with Liana. Varric swears a blue streak in the distance that Bethany wishes she could hear. They all struggle through.

Bethany shudders, wraps her arms tighter around her son.

The blizzard came out of nowhere. Before—oh, Maker, _before_ , it had been such a still night. But the weather is unpredictable in the mountains, and the Frostbacks carry their name heavy on their shoulders.

"Mummy," Mal coughs, plaintively, right in her ear. "Mummy, I don't feel so good…"

"Shush, sweetheart, I know," Bethany soothes. She warms her palms just a little, a single shimmering drop of magic in her mind's eye, pushing the heat into Mal's chest. He's been sniffling for days, and if a chill takes him while they're out here—

Oh, Andraste, please, no. Please, anything but that.

The lullaby rises unbidden in her throat. _Marrow and blood, frost and flood, over a labyrinth of bone_. The Korcari Wilds haunt along the edges of an old dream, and here, so deep in the desolate nowhere, they could freeze solid to their deaths and no one would ever know.

The Chasind believe that the gods are a family. That they speak through the wind, through wolves and deer and birds, through fire, through water, through the very earth itself. Through storms and nighttime and magic. Through death, and blood, and bone.

And the Maker is silent.

Instead, Bethany prays to all of her father's gods.

 _Tsana. Keph. Trelene. Nalipse. Ladies, please. Do not take my son from me_.

But the storm doesn't let up, and the night grows only darker and colder around them. There is a strange, far-away kind of grief eating away at the back of Bethany's eyes; she did not see the Herald fall, but Ser Cullen did, and the colour still hadn't come back to his face when they set out.

To lose a saviour, when everything is so _bleak_ —

Revulsion sticks in Bethany's throat. It's like watching Marian speared on the Arishok's sword all over again. Not worse, never worse because nothing, _nothing_ will ever be worse than that.

But it's a close thing.

And when coughing wracks Malcolm all over again, his little frame trembling, Bethany thinks she can feel frozen tears crackling behind her eyelids. She cuddles him closer, healing magic prickling at the tips of her fingers. It's not enough, not even _close_ to enough, but the vicious convulsions ease.

They need to _stop_.

"Alistair," Bethany cries over the wind. "Alistair, we have to stop!"

For a horrifying second, she thinks he can't hear her.

But through the icy drifts of snow, the blur of his back swings around. Alistair is there in a second, Lia tucked safe and warm into his coat. There's ice in his beard, the melt from his breath curling up Carina's hair.

" _Shite_ ," the air hisses out through Alistair's teeth. "Are you alright?"

He leans over her enough to shield her from the wind, and this is when Bethany realizes that their son sounds worse than she thought. Mal's _gasping_ , ragged and wet, like there's fluid in his lungs and he's drowning around it. The sound fits itself around her heart and _squeezes_ , and dying must be kinder than this, it has to be. Dying must be kinder, because there is nothing quite so cruel as this.

"I'm fine. They won't be able to follow us through this," Bethany pleads. "Please, can we stop?"

Whatever Order descended on Haven certainly _won't_ be able to follow them through this storm. It depends, unfortunately, on having survived that avalanche.

Viciously, Bethany hopes they didn't.

"Can you make it down the mountain into the valley?" Alistair asks, bent in close.

 _It's not me I'm worried about_ , Bethany wants to say. But Alistair's eyes are trained on Mal, gaze rapt with the same sudden fear that's flushing through Bethany herself, so he has to _know_ that she's not worried about herself. His knuckles are white with tension and cold. But Bethany doesn't forget that Carina is wrapped up inside of Alistair's cloak; their middle child peers out of the gap, Alistair's dark eyes in a thin, wind-burnt face.

Bethany swallows down a tiny sob.

"Yes," she says.

Alistair closes his eyes for a second longer than a standard blink. Bethany wishes he'd touch her, but they both have bigger obligations: their children, first and foremost. It stings in her chest, and she has to hide her face in Mal's wild curls.

Ser Cullen straggles up beside them, and his arrival is timely enough to cut off the screaming that's echoing in the chambers of Bethany's lungs.

Alistair looks at their old friend for a very long moment. The rest of the Inquisition seems so far away, torches blurred into stars into wisps into smoke. "We'll get down into the valley, and then we stop."

"I have no complaints. This is… not pleasant," Ser Cullen agrees, a marked lack of stiffness in the words. He's too cold to be proper, but that may be because he's wrapped most of his mantle around Lia. She's more ball of fluff than person, and Bethany's cracking heart mends, just a little, to see how careful Ser Cullen is that her daughter not get cold.

(She doesn't think she'd survive _two_ ill children. Not tonight. Not here.)

"Good," Alistair says, clipped. A muscle in his jaw twitches. "Stay with Beth, will you? I'll find the Seeker."

"Hold on, Alistair—"

"Stay. Here," Alistair says.

It's very quiet for a moment after he's gone.

Ser Cullen blinks at Bethany. "He sounds _exactly_ like—"

"My sister," Bethany finishes the sentence for him. The wind eats the words, and Alistair is already too far to have heard, anyway. "I know."

"I would prefer not to think of it," Ser Cullen says. He makes a decent wind-break, and Bethany stays ducked into his shadow, trying not to let her teeth chatter. It's harder to chase off the cold when she's not moving, and harder still to forget that Mal's shivering himself into stillness.

Bethany finds herself humming into Mal's hair. _Sky is red and bleached is snow, here the blackbird will sing slow; down among the dead, you will find your glow; sleep, my darling, be quiet and let go_ —

The familiar cadence of the lullaby comforts them both.

 _Hush, my love, please don't cry_.

What would it mean, to lose him? Out here in the nighttime dark and the bitter chill, the howling of the wind or the howling of wolves, grief and fear and _loss_ such a poison-sweet cocktail on the tip of her tongue. Wail and whimper, wither and watch. What will it mean, if she can't burn her son's illness away?

Bethany thinks, briefly, of the elven woman and her son. Before Kirkwall, there had been that. Lothering. The refugees. And the irony is that now, in many ways, she is one of them; trapped between a rock and a very hard place. Had it been enough? Had she done enough? Has she given enough that the Maker will overlook this?

(Will her father's gods be of any use?)

Alistair appears out of the gloom and offers her his hand. His face is set, and he's got Carina, and he is still, still, _still_ the kindest person that Bethany has ever known. Through snow and sleet and silver-shadow screaming, he is _still_ so painfully kind.

With their son in her arms, Bethany reaches out and takes it.

—

Varric builds the fire.

"He's gonna be okay, Sunshine," he says, hands quick around the flint, voice so easy for all that he winces every time Malcolm draws in a wet, rattling breath. "It's gonna be just fine."

"Thanks, Varric," Bethany says, so small. "I—the girls—"

"I'll get 'em tucked in," Varric says, a little gruff. "Spin a story, keep 'em occupied."

There are not enough words in the common tongue to convey her gratitude. Bethany inhales sharply, can only nod and keep her breath in her chest. She doesn't—she doesn't know what she's going to have to do, but it's not—

Oh, Maker, it's going to be unholy.

Because the truth about magic is this: if you are tired, or scared, or unhappy, or worried, or—upset, any kind of upset, the magic doesn't come out the way it should. Doesn't _take_. It comes out weaker, less fluent, more choppy. And Bethany is all of these things; tired, scared, unhappy, worried, _upset_. Her husband is arguing with his colleagues because Alistair tends to get very quiet when _he's_ worried unless he can't do anything about whatever it is he's worried _about_ , and he can't stop glancing towards where she's settled with their son in her lap. Every time he makes like he's about to leave them to it, something draws him back.

Bethany needs him, but the Inquisition needs him more.

(How unfair is that?)

But perhaps it's better that he has something to put his attention to. Unholiness aside, Bethany doesn't want to see him break. She's seen enough of that, has seen his jaw tight with pain and fear, half-drugged and desperate to see him smile. She's seen him rolling his shoulders and trying to shake off the ache, flexing his knuckles, trying to justify that heavy weight. The Order, and her family, and Kirkwall. His past better left in the dark. Maybe even Bethany, herself. It's strange, what grief can make a person think.

Alistair always does better when he's got something productive to do with his hands.

And he can't help her, in this.

Bethany looks down at Mal.

Her _baby_.

His breathing is sickly wet.

It chokes out of his throat, the awful gurgle in his lungs, and Bethany can only cradle her son close, furiously cursing the Order under her breath. She counts every inhale, sliding hot healing magic beneath his skin like a skinning knife, but it's not enough, oh, Maker, it's not _enough_ —

"Hush, darling, Mummy's here," Bethany finds herself murmuring over and over, the echo of her own mother in the vowels. "I'm here, I know it hurts, I'm so sorry, _shh_ - _shh_ —"

Malcolm makes a sound like dying. Andraste, but it howls in the cavern of her chest.

Bethany is not aware of Varric leaving, or the gentle way he touches the top of her head. She's not aware of the people around her, or the fire, or the moon slipping out from the clouds to spill silvery light down over her shoulders. She's not aware of the plans that the powers that be have begun to set in motion, nor of the people that are going to die for them. She's not aware of the far-away ocean, or her older sister, or even her twin. She's hardly even aware of _Alistair_.

All she is aware of is Malcolm, and the slow, unsteady flicker of her magic rising in her chest.

Heat, first.

It had been so cold up in the mountains that she's almost afraid to do it. But his fever kept him alive out there, trying to burn out the fluid in his lungs. The sickness is going to drown her son in his own body if she doesn't dry it.

Bethany thinks of the desert and the Vimmark Mountains, and the _last_ time she'd killed someone for her children.

She thinks of the elven woman in Lothering. She thinks of the woman's son.

Heat, first.

The healing burns at the cracks in her hands like salt in a wound. Mal makes a little soun; too much, oh, Maker, too much. Bethany's control is frayed, already hanging only by a string; she can feel the _hiss_ of the fire expanding as it tries to gulp down the night.

She'd always been much better at violence. Bethany grits her teeth.

Starts again.

Heat, first.

Whatever is in Malcolm's lungs is sticky. It doesn't burn the way she needs it to. It might freeze, but that would kill him. Too much cold. The wind kisses her cheeks, picks up and swirls the snow. The scalpel of bright healing magic in her grip _slides_.

Sweat down her neck. Bethany exhales, shuddering. Too much, but not enough. _Shite_.

Starts again.

Heat, first—

"May I 'elp?"

Shocked out of the magic, Bethany crackles all over as she jerks her head up.

The Grand Enchanter—or the woman who used to be the Grand Enchanter—stands just outside of the flickering firelight. She's a formless thing, shards of firelight dancing across her face, the shiver-stillness of the night broken by the sudden intrusion.

The Grand Enchanter—or the woman who used to be the Grand enchanter—is the strongest Spirit Healer in a generation.

(If Solona were here, this wouldn't be an issue. But Solona is gone with Neria and Anders, and Malcolm is _dying_ , and Bethany is not too proud to beg.)

"Please," Bethany says. Her voice cracks right down the middle. "Please. I can't—I'm no healer. He's so sick."

Grand Enchanter Fiona hums her acquiescence, and steps into the circle of light. She seems—slighter, somehow, than Bethany last saw her. Slim and dark-haired as Merrill, but the eyes are all wrong. Too dark, too sharp. Something tightens in the woman's face as she looks down at Bethany's son, but then it's gone, wiped away as though it had never been. The Grand Enchanter settles at Bethany's side, robes pooling around her frame, and lowers her hands to Malcolm's forehead.

Andraste, but it is a marvel to watch a competent healer at work.

The magic is unlike any Bethany has encountered before. Pure white, and there is an— _absence_ , for lack of a better word; an emptiness that draws the sickness out. It is no small feat: Mal's fever still hasn't broken, but Bethany is his mother, and as Grand Enchanter Fiona works, she quietly thanks every deity is out there still that the woman knows what she's doing.

(Andraste, that the woman is here at all. What if—what _if_ —?)

Gods, Bethany couldn't have done this on her own.

A little shakily, she says, very quietly, "Thank you."

Grand Enchanter Fiona crooks an eyebrow. It's highly reminiscent of—Alistair, actually, when he's about to put a wrench in something. It's just the same. "Do not thank me yet."

"No, I should. Even if—" Bethany breaks off, smoothing her hands over Malcolm's sweat-soaked hair. He sounds… better. Not all the way well, but at least like he'll make it through the night. The slight wheeze of his breath doesn't hurt so much, anymore. "It's—thank you, Grand Enchanter. I don't— _thank_ you."

The healing witchlight flickers and dies, crystalline sparks hanging in the air for a single, shining moment before they vanish. The Grand Enchanter sits back and exhales. Her knees _crack_ sickly, and Bethany winces.

"He will be fine," the Grand Enchanter pronounces. Mal curls between them, so small in the shadow of the fire. "But he must rest."

Bethany breathes out, too. Now is not the time to voice the fear still clinging to the insides of her chest; that's for later, for whenever Alistair returns, because there's no one else who ought to hear that except him. Malcolm needs sleep, needs time to let the magic sink into him, needs to let it _take_. But they're out in the wilderness and the cold, leaderless, and there's nowhere left to go.

Bethany mourns Kirkwall quietly.

Sometimes, she just wants to go _home_.

The wish is a tiny miserable knot beneath her breastbone. Because isn't that what everyone wants, in the end? To go home? To be somewhere safe and sweetly familiar, with people who love you? Old blankets and sunlight, and little pots of wildberry jam, and the herbs she'd had growing along the sill in the kitchen with their pale green shoots. Carina and Liana laughing, and Mal toddling after Orana and Sandal, and—

And Alistair, too.

Always, Alistair, too.

The missing is halfway to rising up in her chest.

"Well, let's not do _that_ again," someone mutters from behind her. Alistair is the colour of wheat at sunset in the firelight, and he comes to settle down next to Bethany. Dressed down to naught but breeches and a shirt full of holes, he doesn't pay the Grand Enchanter a single iota of attention. "Are you—is Mal alright?"

Bethany slumps against him. "He's better."

Alistair checks them both over with a kind of habitual ease, making sure that all the bones are in the right place. It's not until after he's finished this dressing-down that he bothers to look at the woman who saved their son's life.

"Thank you," he says, carefully, straightening a little when the Grand Enchanter stares at him. "For saving my son."

There's half a stutter trapped in the Grand Enchanter's throat. A hundred emotions flash across her face, and then they're all compressed in a demure politeness, a delicate lowering of her head at the thanks. She looks, Bethany thinks, like nothing more than an Orlesian dowager, regal in her accepted praise.

"It was—nothing more than what anyone else would have done," Grand Enchanter Fiona says, even as she begins to rise. "Do not thank me."

"Please, stay," Bethany says. She'd thought that the Grand Enchanter might have wanted to sit by the fire for a while.

"No, I will intrude no further," the woman says, inclining her head. "It has been a very long day."

"They found the Herald," Alistair says. He's managed to pull Bethany half into his lap already, arms tucking comfortable around her waist; Bethany thinks that he might never let her out of his sight ever again. She wonders, briefly, if there is anyone else in the world as shameless as Alistair is. Probably not. "She could use a decent healer. Right now, Cullen's hovering over her. Maker, that'd be a fright to wake up to, I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

Bethany has to fight valiantly not to jab her elbow into his side, just as the Grand Enchanter gives him a very severe look, much as a school marm might.

And yet, Bethany gets the sense that Grand Enchanter Fiona is also trying desperately not to _laugh_.

How very odd.

The Gran Enchanter is not tall, for an elf. But she holds herself with a sharp-toothed grace, fierce pride in every moment, and through the smoke from the campfire she is an eldritch thing. For a moment, Bethany thinks that the woman might disappear.

"Grand Enchanter," Bethany calls, trying to bring her back.

Grand Enchanter Fiona looks at her with level eyes.

"I know it's not much," Bethany says, struggling around marbles in her mouth. "But I—please know that wherever we end up, Alistair and I, you're always welcome there. My mother is in Kirkwall. If you ever need—I mean—"

"She gets it, Beth," Alistair murmurs into her ear, grinning. "You're half in love with her."

This time, Bethany _does_ jab her elbow into his side.

A funny little smile curls the Grand Enchanter's face up as she watches them. There's a melancholy to it, some sad old thing like someone's told a joke but she's missed half of it, or it was a punchline she'd already heard.

"I appreciate it, Madame Hawke," the Grand Enchanter says. "But your husband is right. I should tend to ze 'Erald."

Bethany and Alistair watch the woman slip away for what seems like a very long time.

"So," Alistair says, finally, exhaling just loudly enough that Bethany understands he'd been putting on a show. "Is Mal—is he really alright?"

"She saved his life, Alistair," Bethany says. She leans her cheek against his collarbone, glad for the feel of his skin. "That's not a joke."

"No, I didn't think it was," Alistair murmurs. He runs a hand through her curls.

"They really found Lady Lavellan?"

" _She_ found _us_ ," he says. Bethany can tell that he's turning the words over as he says them, finding the truth there. "She was— _is_ —very lucky. She found her way through some old smuggling tunnels, I think. We'll find out in the morning."

Just then, from far away, a roll of voices begins.

 _Shadows fall, and hope has fled_ —

 _Oh_ , Bethany thinks. She blinks, catches smoking embers in the corners of her vision. _It's_ _singing_. They're singing.

She looks at Alistair, and he looks at her. Through the dark and the shadows and the valley of the dead, through templars and sickness and darkspawn. He looks at her. He looks.

— _for one day soon, the dawn will come_.

—

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.

.

.

.

 _tbc_.


	5. for the chance to be easy

**disclaimer** : disclaimed.  
 **dedication** : to finally having the words back.  
 **notes** : _the pull of you_ — the national.

 **title** : for the chance to be easy  
 **summary** : There is a new Commander in Haven. — templar!au part ii; Alistair/Bethany.

—

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.

.

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Skyhold is _chaos_.

It's strange. An abandoned castle in the middle of the Frostback Mountains, a forgotten structure; it should be crumbling. But it's not. It's almost as though something has held the place in stasis. Time is outside of Skyhold, or perhaps Skyhold is outside of time. Bethany had heard a story, once, about a man who fell asleep so well-hidden that not even Time could find him, and he lived an age inside a hollow tree but never grew a day older. When he finally woke up, the world had moved on, and he was left behind.

That's what it feels like, to walk through Skyhold's halls.

The Herald—the _Inquisitor_ —spent all of two minutes inside the old walls before she took her apostate and the Iron Bull and Varric and ran for Crestwood's hills. She's Dalish, and being in a place so human must make her feel trapped.

It's not a tower, but Bethany's feeling a little trapped, herself.

"You can't just—put the granite wherever you want it! That's not how it works!"

"You think you're gonna do better, salrocka?!"

Bethany glares at the stocky dwarven man, fit to breathe fire with her hands on her hips. "Yes, I think I could!"

"Prove it!"

" _Ugh_!" Bethany says, really more a word than a sound. Fine. _Dwarves_. As though she's not been staring at this bit of wall for the past twenty minutes while a dozen different people tried every known method short of _catapulting_ the granite into place, which _also_ doesn't work!

Bethany glares at the granite.

It doesn't move.

This is unfortunate.

She can _hear_ the Guildsmaster smirking. The man is going to be absolutely _unbearable_ if she doesn't do something about this bloody stone.

Bethany glares harder.

Force magic is all about willpower. Stone, you see, stone is solid; stone has a sense of its own, and that sense is always grounded. Moving stone takes work, or at the very least, it takes _stubbornness_.

Bethany shoves her curls out of her face, sets her jaw, and _forces_ the magic through.

The granite moans and groans, demon-claws screeching over the eardrums, the sound some unholy thing like darkspawn and templars combined. It sounds like every nightmare Bethany has ever had; the resistance is teeth-gritting, and infuriating, and Maker on His defiled throne, she didn't survive Kirkwall for _this_.

But finally, finally, the granite begins to move.

Bethany holds herself straight, feet planted solid against the ground, tightening her grip on the stone. It takes her another moment to find her voice, but find her voice she does.

"Where do you want it?" Bethany asks the Guildsmaster, and is quite pleased that the words don't shake with the strain. The magic burns easier, now that she's got the hold and the force magic and the golden witchlight glittering around the edges of her fingers.

The Guildsmaster looks like he's just swallowed raw lyrium. He points at a hole in a wall.

"So?" Bethany asks him, trying not to be _entirely_ triumphant as she pushes the stone into place. It seals the hole rather nicely. Again, it is very hard not to be _entirely triumphant_ about this. "How did I do?"

"You can stay," the Guildsmaster says, though he doesn't sound happy about it.

 _My whole family is like this_ , Bethany thinks, which is horrible and gleeful in equal measure. But here it is:

In the end, Bethany still has _far_ too much magic to know what to do with.

The rebuilding is long and arduously _hot_ work, but there is something very rewarding about it. The sun shines watery pale gold through the patchy cloud cover, the cool of the mountain wind sweet against the sweat-stick of Bethany's hair to the back of her neck. A raven screams in the distance, the call echoing over the high Frostback peaks, lingering in the air before it fades.

And there is something _viscerally_ satisfying about the sour look on the Guildmaster's face as Bethany finishes shoving a giant block of granite into the pitted surface of the far eastern wall. The mages will have their tower due; Bethany has no qualms about the heavy work. It keeps her hands and her mind busy. And besides—

Well, salrocka, who's done better, _now_?

Bethany takes a slow deep breath, pulling out of the magic long enough to register only that people are staring. She's too old to flush, now, over something like this—eyes don't bother her so much, anymore, now that there are no templars nor their Circles left.

Eyes on the back of her neck don't _entirely_ mean terror, anymore.

(And Malcolm has definitely found a new favourite person.

Grand Enchanter Fiona is being led about by the hand, imperiously shown all of Bethany's son's favourite parts of the castle. Bethany can see them out of the corner of her eye, and she isn't going to bother saying _I told you so_. The Grand Enchanter seems more bemused by this turn of events than anything else, and allows Malcom his solemn airs. Andraste, if the woman thinks she's going to escape Bethany's son _now_ , she's out of her mind. She's signed her own death warrant, and that is that.

Somehow, Bethany doesn't think that the Grand Enchanter minds, over much.)

"Er, pardon me. Lady Hawke? Do you have a moment?"

Bethany looks over her shoulder.

The woman standing before her carries a stave with the kind of loose grace that comes from having a fairly even hand on one's magic. Her cheekbones are sharp and her eyes are an ink-dark kind of slate-blue that Bethany has no name for. Her hair is neither red nor brown, nor even some strange mix of the two; it is the colour of new spring fawnhide, and it is braided away severely from her face the way only someone with truly unmanageable hair would even ever attempt. She's slim-shouldered and pale-faced, clean, soft hands. Full-mouthed, unscarred. Noble, if Bethany had to guess.

"Oh, hello," Bethany says, blinking. It's not often that she's accosted like this. "I'm sorry, did you need something?"

The woman—Andraste, there is something so incredibly _young_ about her; she looks to be only a year younger than Bethany herself, perhaps two, and yet there is an ease to her features that Bethany doesn't recognize—fiddles with her stave.

"Commander Cullen told me that you were—" the woman stumbles over the words, "—that you didn't grow up in a Circle. I-I wondered if you wanted to—talk about it, maybe?"

 _Apostate_. Bethany can near see the word hanging in the air, curdled like sour milk. _Freedom_ , too, and _shame_. There are so many things that the Circles took away from anyone who could touch the Fade, even family, even emotions, sometimes even _words_.

But there are no Circles, anymore.

"I did, yes," Bethany says. She weighs every word careful. This is Skyhold, and despite how much she wants to relax and simply trust it, she can't. The walls still have ears, even here. "Would you like to come for a walk?"

The woman nods vigorously, which settles that rather nicely. Bethany turns to wave something incomprehensible to the guild's Overseer—he'll know what she means, despite the fact that Bethany herself doesn't know what she means; the language to building is not one that Bethany thinks she will likely ever understand—and together the two women pick their way away from the rebuilding efforts.

"I'm sorry," Bethany says, when the silence between them is broken only by the muted shouting from within the main hall. "I don't know your name."

"Oh," Bethany's companion starts. "It's—Evelyn, my name is Evelyn. But please, call me Evie, everyone does."

 _Everyone_ can't be all that many people, Bethany reflects, but she's enough tact not to _say_ that. Evelyn stands like a lady, like someone grown up in wealth, and absolutely _cherished_ for it; it's the lack of freckles on a complexion so clearly meant for them, Bethany thinks. They're a reasonable enough distance away from prying ears that she no longer feels like she's being watched. They still are, probably, but likely only from afar; if she keeps her head down, or, better, tossed backwards towards the bright blue of the sky, even a lip-reader wouldn't know the difference.

"So," Bethany tips her head. "What did you want to know?"

"What was it _like_?" Lady Evelyn asks, too fast, all in a rush as though she's been dying to get the words out. "And—and what was Kirkwall like" What was the _Commander_ like? How did you manage to stay out of the Circle for so long? Was it _lonely_?"

It's rather a torrent of words; they gush out of her, stoppered only by Lady Evelyn's immediate need to breathe. And once she inhales, it's as though she realizes all of the things she just said, and claps a hand over her mouth, absolutely mortified with it.

Andraste, but Bethany certainly knows _that_ feeling.

"It wasn't ever lonely," Bethany says, slowly. It's easier to answer the questions backwards, and so she does. "I always had my family—my father and mother, and my sister, and my twin. And Alistair—my husband—later, too, But I was—" Bethany breaks off to breathe through the sudden wash of memory, still strange and jagged with pain, "—I was always afraid."

"Why?"

Bethany grimaces a makeshift grin out of the corner of her mouth. For anyone else, it would be too personal. In so many ways, it's still too personal now. But—

Well, she's already come this far, hasn't she?

(And it's not as though the words she's about to say will come as a surprise to either of them. Bethany doesn't know one single apostate who _hasn't_ spent their entire life afraid; she doesn't know one single _mage_ who hasn't spent their entire life afraid, for that matter. Perhaps it's different in Tevinter, but Kirkwall is not Tevinter, and certainly neither is Ferelden.)

"Templars," Bethany says, soft. "Demons. Templars, again."

Lady Evelyn is very quiet at that. Bethany watches the way the woman chews the statement over, the bright burnished gold of her hair catching the sun. The stories of the City of Chains are entrenched into Marcher custom; shipping city, blood magic, nightmare fuel. Rather a lot of stabby dwarves, too, though that's not spoken of in polite company. The Carta and the Coterie, and burning white stone. Darktown. Slaver city. The Bone Pit and its lingering shades. Even the Wounded Coast.

Kirkwall can be _too much_ , for some tastes.

"Why Kirkwall, then?" Lady Evelyn asks.

"Darkspawn," Bethany smiles again, all teeth, but it's not a happy smile. It's a smile that aches around the edges, a smile made of sweetgrass and painted window boxes full of drooping flowers, of dust and detritus and a Chantry overrun. A smile made of an abandoned home.

The colour drains from Lady Evelyn's face as though it had never been, leaving it white as chalk. "The Blight."

"It was—I'd just met Alistair, did you know? I was barely eighteen," Bethany shakes her head, the smile turning a little rueful. She tips her head back to stare up into the bright blank blue of the sky. No clouds, today. Maker, she doesn't really know how to _tell_ anyone this. She doesn't know if she knows the right words. "He'd just joined the Chantry in Lothering, and we—found each other. Andraste, I'm still surprised my mother didn't throw a fit. I'd gone and fallen in love with a templar boy, I must have had no sense at all."

"But he never—?"

"He loved me, too," Bethany says. She thinks of Alistair, the softness in his eyes, the care as he runs his fingers through her curls. It had made her giddy in the stomach then, and frankly, it still does now. "I suppose that's love for you, though. It makes everything else… not matter."

"I wouldn't know," Lady Evelyn murmurs. She draws into herself. Shoulders come up around her ears, a shrinking that speaks more to shame than safety. "The Trevelyans—Ostwick's nobility is dedicated to the Chantry, but family especially. Three of my brothers are templars."

 _Ah_ , Bethany thinks. That's why she's asking. If Lady Evelyn had templar family—

Well, no matter.

(Bethany could ask if Lady Evelyn hated the Circle. She could. She could even get an answer, likely, because Bethany doesn't think that Lady Evelyn has ever had a real secret in her life. If she has, it's the kind of secret kept so deep in the chest that she's probably not even aware it's a secret at all. And they don't know each other well enough for Bethany to try to take her apart; if it was Merrill, that would be a different story, or maybe even if Bethany was more like her older sister than she is. But Lady Evelyn is not Merrill, and Bethany is not Marian, and today is not a day to be so unnecessarily cruel.)

Very gently, she touches the woman's elbow.

"Have you heard from them?" Bethany asks. Softly, like an apology.

"One of them," Lady Evelyn says. Her voice shakes. "Cedric was on his way to the Conclave from Starkhaven. He was stationed there. The other two… I don't know."

"I'm sorry," says Bethany, and means it.

Lady Evelyn kind of shrugs, kind of smiles. A brave little thing, for all its trembling edges. "Thank you. But um—you were saying? About Kirkwall? And the Commander?"

"Interested, are you?"

Lady Evelyn turns a very unflattering shade of pink. "My cat keeps sneaking into his rooms, it's not my fault!"

Bethany bursts into laughter outright. "Oh, I bet Ser Cullen just _hates_ that!"

"Bread seems to like him enough to make up for it," Lady Evelyn says gloomily. She fiddles with her staff some more, like she's not quite sure what to do with her hands. "And the Commander's been—he's very good about it?"

"He tries to be," Bethany says, kindly as she can. She stares down into the valley, the rush of the wind taking the words away. She thinks about that, sometimes. What happens to all the words lost to the wind? Does the Maker collect them, along with His prayers? Does He listen to their songs?

Bethany resolves to ask Alistair about it, later. He has more bitter edges and sharper feelings about the Chant than Bethany does, herself, and he's the one to deal with the little village that's sprung up at the base of the mountain. More people are making the pilgrimage to Skyhold every day. There had been tents at the very beginning, but they're already becoming little cottages, all flying the Inquisition's colours.

It's very Ferelden of them, Bethany thinks, idly.

But that's neither here nor there.

"We were friends, the three of us," Bethany tells Lady Evelyn, slowly. "Alistair more than me. He and Ser Cullen—they survived the Gallows together. I suppose that's why it hurt them both so much, at the end. They'd never really been on opposite sides of anything."

Lady Evelyn tilts her head, a curiosity in her eyes. "What happened?"

Smoke and flame, embers popping crimson against an indigo sky. Marian, turning slow and graceful as a line of music, daggers wet-dark with blood. Alistair pulling Bethany into a shadow to take one breath together mouth to mouth before throwing themselves back into the fray. Bitter and burning and ashes in the mouth, the sun rising gory vermillion over the Waking Sea.

Twenty-seven dead children, all too young to defend themselves. Bethany never asked what happened to the men who'd led that singular change. Given how sacred Ser Culolen seems to hold Bethany's own little ones, she can't imagine that he'd taken this particular sin in easy stride.

"Kirkwall exploded, with my older sister right in the middle of it. More people than I like to think about died. It was—very hard."

Lady Evelyn doesn't pry further, which is a blessing. Bethany doesn't think she could explain the rest, the quiet violence of that night or its furious aftermath, the way she could taste blood like iron at the back of her throat for weeks. Doesn't even think she _wants_ to.

What Bethany _wants_ , all of a sudden, is to go find her daughters and wrap her arms around them, whisper apologies into their hair. It's a selfish thing that they've done, isn't it? _I'm sorry that I've taken you away from home. I'm sorry that we're in the middle of this. I'm sorry that your father and I didn't know better._ _I'm sorry, my darlings, I'm so sorry_.

But apologies don't really solve anything. They ease the hurt, some, but the situation hasn't changed; Skyhold remains, and so does the Hawke family. The chaos that Marian leaves in her wake has spread across the continent, and there will be no escape until someone does something about it.

And Maker's breath, there's still _Malcolm_ to deal with.

"Lady Hawke? Are you well?"

"Oh, I'm fine," says Bethany, even though she isn't. It must do, for now. She smiles at Lady Evelyn, who's shifting her weight back and forth, unsure. It must be hard, to wonder so much about loneliness. To be so deep inside of it. Bethany remembers it like a dream, some soft strange thing. She's so far away from it, now. "What else were you wanting to know?

—

"If I have to listen to one more Orlesian lordling tell me that we ought to be importing his despair-tasting cheese, I'm going throw myself off these bloody battlements and they can find someone _else_ to do it!" Alistair growls, stomping out of his office onto the ramparts where they've taken to meeting before the supper hour. It's later in the day, afternoon sun catching on Skyhold's spires and setting them aglow, and Alistair looks about as rumpled as Bethany has ever seen him look in her life.

"Hello to you, too," Bethany says, can't help but to smile. He just looks so _grouchy_. "Bad day?"

"The worst," he mutters. " _Orlesian lordlings_ , Beth! I didn't sign up for Orlesians!"

"You sort of did, though," Bethany says, a little like an apology.

"Mmmphmff," says Alistair. He plants his face in her curls.

"I don't think that's helpful, somehow?"

" _I_ think it is!"

Bethany allows this for long, unending moments that swirl and settle low in her stomach, her forehead pressed to his chest. There's comfort to it, and she thinks that maybe one day, when this is all over, they'll get a chance to stand just like this and stare out at an ocean, and not have anything to worry about at all.

But—

Well.

"Alistair," Bethany says, tugging just a little on the hem of his shirt. It's a good way to get his attention; always has been, for that matter. "We need to talk about Mal."

Bethany feels the sigh as it makes its way out of his body. It heaves out of him, sound through stone, the great width of his shoulders shaking with it. He knows they need to talk about Mal. They _always_ need to talk about Mal, but now more than ever; their son has had a bit of a rough go of it, recently. "He almost died, Beth. Must we?"

"You didn't see him kill that templar."

"What?"

Bethany pulls back, feels her own sigh working its way out, too. Shoulders down and Maker, she feels small. Smaller than anything. "Do you remember—the dwarf in the nursery?"

"Before I watched your sister murder the thing that just crushed Haven and how I'm now beginning to doubt what little sanity I have left?" he says, rhetorically. There was no forgetting that. "Yes, I do remember that, but if I've got a choice I'd really rather not."

"Alistair."

He grins. "Sorry."

"No, you're not," Bethany says, because he _isn't_ , and he's making her life far more difficult right now than he ought to. This is a serious conversation! They need to be serious! "Anyway, it's the dwarf I'm interested in—"

"The dwarf, really? You should have told me sooner—"

" _Alistair_!"

"Right, right, sorry, I'll be quiet— _ow_ , did you just _bite_ me?"

"You deserved it!"

"I don't think I did, dear, you're overreacting to a bit of—"

"Alistair, would you listen to me?! It was blood magic then and it was blood magic now! He snapped that monster's neck with a _word_ , I've never seen anything like it!"

Alistair falls still. His palms curl careful around her shoulders. "Beth. Are you sure?"

Bethany's entire body slumps into him. "Yes. He—swallowed it, afterwards. The power."

"…Well, that's shite."

"Mmmphmff," Bethany says, and in a mirror-reaction, plants her face directly in the center of his chest. Into his heartbeat she says, "He didn't mean to. I doubt he even knew what he was doing."

"I'd be worried if he meant it," Alistair says, grim. Bethany can't see what her husband is doing, but she can feel the crane of his muscles; he must be looking down into Skyhold's courtyard, where even now the dead and dying have been laid out in the makeshift infirmary to await the Maker. Mal is down there, Bethany knows, getting underfoot and trailing curiously after the Grand Enchanter.

"Shite," he says again, and then a third time with feeling, " _Shite_."

"Mmm," Bethany mumbles again, because that's about all she has to say.

Alistair is quiet for another minute, during which he rearranges her more to his liking; Bethany finds herself tucked between Alistair's chest and the cold stone of the battlement's parapets, his arms tight around her waist and the metal of his gauntlets sharp over the cage of her ribs.

"Have you thought about writing to Merrill?" he asks, softly, at last.

The thought _had_ crossed Bethany's mind. "I don't want to do that to her. Not—" she has to break off to breathe through the sudden ache in her throat, thinking about that night in the Hanged Man, Merrill and mead and how deeply it had cut, how little there had been left afterwards, "—not after everything."

"Do we have another choice?" Alistair asks, dry. "It's not as though we've got blood mages gallivanting all the over the place to question. That's Kirkwall you're thinking of, my dear."

"And you wonder why I bit you?"

"Well, no, I didn't _wonder_ , it's just that it _hurt_ —"

Bethany smothers her laugh into the dip in his throat. One glimmering second of levity in the dark of the conversation. "I should bite you again, it might teach you a lesson."

"Probably not the lesson you're thinking of," Alistair flashes her a bright, mischievous grin.

"Oh, I don't know about that," Bethany says, tipping her head back and forth just a little, contemplative. She feels like molasses, slow and dark and utterly syrupy. It leaks into the words. "It might be _exactly_ the lesson I'm thinking of."

"We're both going to get in trouble if you keep that up," Alistair coughs, voice rumbling low, already half-mad and hungry around the vowels.

"Keep what up?" Bethany asks.

" _Beth_ ," he says. He really is terrible at being stern.

"Yes?"

"We're outside. And we were talking about our son's blood magic. And the Seeker'll kill me if she sees my naked arse. Not right now, please?"

"You ruin all my fun," Bethany smiles into his throat. His pulse _thuds_ beneath her lips, just a smidge too fast. Serves him right, honestly. The number of times he's dragged her behind tapestries and kissed her breathless and then _run off_ to go deal with whatever new crises has taken hold is too many to count!

"You brought it up, love."

It stills her, a little. Bethany slumps into him again. "I just don't know what to do."

Alistair touches her hair, just the very tips of his fingers through the curls. "I don't know, either. I _do_ think you should write to Merrill, even if it's not about Mal. You miss her, I can tell."

"I miss _Kirkwall_ ," she murmurs, the words all twisted and strung together. Things she'd never thought she'd say, indeed. "I miss _home_. I miss—Andraste, I don't even know what I miss."

"Your mother," Alistair says. "You could write her, too."

"It wouldn't be the same."

(Here is what Bethany misses: her sister. Her cousin. Her _twin_. The Lowtown bazar, and the Hanged Man's terrible ale, and what the Waking Sea looks like from their bedroom window in the very early morning. The sound of her mother's laughter. Orana's cooking. Waking up with Alistair all tangled together and knowing that they didn't have to _be_ anywhere, that they could stay in bed for as long as their children would allow them if they wanted, that no one expected anything of them. Picking wildberries along the Wounded Coast with Merrill. Isabela's ostentatious hats always hung by the front door. Wicked Grace late at night. Varric's stories. Fenris' brooding. Her twin, again. Everything. _Everything_.)

Alistair looks at her for a very long time.

"No," he says, so gently that it aches. "I suppose it wouldn't."

Bethany hides her face in his chest, breathing in unsteadily to stymie the sudden slosh of tears in her throat. It's so much harder to deal with the missing than she thought it would be. It shouldn't hurt this much.

But it's—it's hard.

"How are we going to protect him?"

There's something strange and reverent to the way Alistair keeps her against him, his lips soft against the line of her hair. Before the world had ended and Kirkwall had exploded, there had been a morning when Bethany had walked through Hightown just as the sun was coming up. From one of the estate windows, someone had been playing a piano. It had filtered down and saturated the courtyard, settled into her lungs like liquid sunlight.

Bethany can't remember the tune, now, but the way Alistair holds her in this moment feels precisely the same as the piano had done, then:

Shy, sweet, endlessly fragile.

"The same way we always have," Alistair says, quiet and serious. "Blood mage or not. He's still Mal, and he's still ours. Long as he doesn't go 'round trying to conquer Tevinter or sommat—"

"Don't even joke," Bethany says.

"—then I think he'll be fine," he finishes, mouth quirking upwards. "I mean, he's a bit young for the whole _demons are not your friends_ conversation, but I suppose we can let your sister do that one?"

"You're incorrigible, did you know?"

"Thank you, I try," Alistair says, cheerful. But he takes the rest of her weight without complaint, and out here, high up on the battlements with the wind biting blood into her cheeks and snowflakes through her hair, it's almost an unbearable comfort.

Bethany closes her eyes and exhales. Tries again. "How was the rest of your day?"

"Orlesian lordlings," Alistair says darkly, for the third time, and leaves it at that. "Yours?"

"I—met Ser Cullen's mage?"

"Evelyn?" Alistair asks. At Bethany's nod, he shrugs. "She's less terrifying than her sister."

"That's what you said last time, too," Bethany points out, because it is the truth.

"I still mean it. Maxine Trevelyan is _mental_ , no one should spend any time with her," Alistair says fervently, with all the respect due someone who reminds him so intensely of Marian Hawke it's a bit frightening. Bethany thinks that he probably hasn't made the comparison yet, and as soon as he does, he's going to be very upset about it.

"How do we feel about Evelyn?"

"You're the one who talked to her," Alistair crooks an eyebrow at her. "How do _you_ feel about Evelyn?"

"She's—" Bethany breaks off, chewing on her bottom lip. "Her whole family is templars, Alistair. She's a Knight-Enchanter. I'd say she's never been scared in her life, but there's—"

"What?"

"I don't know," Bethany murmurs. "She seems… lonely? Is that the right word?"

"I dunno. Is it?"

"She seems like she's never had a friend," Bethany tells him, fingers tangling in Alistair's shirtfront. _That's_ what it is, the thing that had been so deeply, intrinsically _sad_ to Lady Evelyn. She seems like she's never had a friend. Now that Bethany has named it for what it is, she can't take it back, can't un-see it. _She's never had a friend_ hangs over the entire memory, colouring it faint blue with melancholy.

"Not much better than Cullen, then."

"Ser Cullen has us," Bethany shakes her head. She worries at a button, brow furrowed, and very carefully doesn't look up at her husband to see his particular reaction to the use of the present tense. Ser Cullen does still have them, both of them, whether Alistair wants to admit it or not. "If all her family was templars, she wouldn't have—I can't imagine the other enchanters would have wanted to talk to her?"

"You think?"

"I do."

Alistair studies the way Bethany is tugging at his button for only a minute more before he catches her hands between his, stilling the nervous movement. He grins down at her kind of lopsided. "You're going to have to sew that back on if you rip it off, you know. I'm useless at buttons."

"At least you can darn your own socks," Bethany manages a watery smile for him.

"This is really upsetting you, isn't it?" Alistair asks, but it's not really a question. His face pulls into a frown, the golden-brown of his eyes shading darker with it. "Maker's breath, you're worried about them. Why are you worried about them?"

"Should I not be? I don't think either of them know how to—be _people,_ Alistair!"

"Cullen has his moments," Alistair allows. "Jury's out on the other one, though."

Bethany laughs, weak and watery again. She's mortified to find that he's not actually wrong; she _is_ worried about them, and worse, she's about to _cry_ about it. And it's funny, because it's something that she can worry about without really _worrying_ about it; it's something to latch onto that doesn't hit too close to the gaping holes in her chest the way worrying about her children does.

Alistair brushes his fingers across her cheek. "Aw, Beth, c'mon. Don't cry."

Bethany buries her face in his chest again. The laughter startles out of him a growing thing, getting bigger and bigger with each moment. It shines, does Alistair's laughter. Bethany wants to swallow it down, hold it inside of her, keep it crystallized and sweet and all for herself.

Alistairs keeps his arms looped around her, leans back against the battlements, and holds on.

—

"How have you been, Lady Hawke?"

Sister Leliana stirs honey into her tea with the air of someone who is taking a much-needed break from a dismal, sunless day that has no end in sight. She looks _older_ , too; there are lines around her eyes that Bethany doesn't remember, threads of white in the bright red flame of her hair, cricks and cracks and scars on her hands. And there is something hard and sharp to the purse of the Sister's mouth that Bethany doesn't recognize.

It seems out of place on the good Sister's face, for Bethany has only ever known the woman before her kind.

But of course, it _has_ been a decade, and they both have changed.

"Call me Bethany, Sister, please," Bethany says, allowing herself a smile. It's nice that the Sister still loves honey; it's nice that some things don't change. "We've known each other for a very long time."

"Mmm," the Sister hums into her teacup, the bone china glinting faintly gold in the sun through the window. "Before you were married. My belated congratulations."

"Oh," Bethany says, pinking just a little. It's been a long time since she's had _congratulations_ on her wedding. "Thank you."

"So," says the Sister, conversationally, "Do you prefer Hawke, or Theirin?"

Bethany's teacup rattles in its saucer. "I-I'm sorry?"

Sister Leliana rests her chin in her hand with her elbow propped against her knee, watching Bethany with warm, fond eyes. "You would make a _terrible_ agent. I hardly had to say a word to get it out of you! I suspected it was true, but I was not sure until now."

"Who told you?" Bethany asks, very quietly. Who else had known?

"I must have _some_ secrets, no?" Sister Leliana puts a finger to her lips, cat's grin satisfied behind the gloves.

"Sister, please," Bethany says, and she keeps her voice low and steady as she can, belaying the tightening panic wild in her chest. Not yet, not yet. "I didn't think anyone else knew."

"It was no betrayal, Lady Hawke," Sister Leliana's mouth curls. "But I am _very_ good at what I do. We have already paid the Maker in blood for this place."

"But it's—"

"I will do what I must to ensure the Inquisition's survival," the Sister says, not unkindly. She puts her tea down without sound, and the mischievousness in her face slips away like a thief in the night, vanished as though it had never been. "We cannot be blindsided, and we must be above reproach."

"I don't understand what that has to do with Alistair," says Bethany, but even as she says it, she knows it's a lie. Bethany laces her fingers to keep from fidgeting; Andraste, she _knows_ she's a bad liar. She's always been a bad liar.

"He is our Commander! I will not have him manipulated for anything."

Bethany doesn't point out that Ser Cullen is as much Commander of the Inquisition forces as Alistair is, and that Ser Cullen's is a much shorter chain. Lyrium withdrawal has no silver linings, only pitfalls and drawbacks and bitter burning ends. But perhaps she doesn't _need_ to point this out—the good Sister must have thought of it already, and taken precautions for it.

Oh, Bethany thinks. That's what this _is_.

A precaution.

A _just in case_.

"What would have me do?" Bethany asks her, softly. "It is what it is. Alistair is—he's no prince. Sister. He'd be miserable."

Sister Leliana scoffs. She pulls her hood down to shake out her hair, and she looks, for a moment, a little more like a human and little less like an implement of Chantry death. "Oh, Maker, no! Do you think I would be so silly? So _obvious_? No. I want to _use_ it, but not to put him on a throne."

"For what, then? What good does it do? He's not—we're not any kind of royal! Neither of us even _want_ to be!"

"You don't need to _want_ to be. You _are_ ," Sister Leliana says, calm and collected. Her gaze is cool; this is only one more secret, kept behind lips sewed shut, as far as the Nightingale is concerned. Something to use, should the need arise.

But to Bethany, it is the entire world.

Andraste, she wants to tell Alistair, but she knows that if she does, everything might fall to pieces. He'll want to leave, but he won't because there are two things in the world that Alistair is, and that's _kind_ and _stubborn_. He'll want to leave, but he'll be duty-bound to stay, and he'll find a way to convince Bethany that she ought to take the children and _go back to Kirkwall_. And if that happens, Maker, if they're parted like that—no, Bethany thinks, no, she'll never forgive herself.

Better to keep quiet, and to stay together, but Bethany has never kept a secret from her husband, before. She doesn't even know if she knows _how_.

"What do we do, then?"

"What do you _want_ to do?" asks the Sister in reply.

"Does it matter?"

"It is easier if we agree," says the Sister. "I do not want anyone using who he is against him. Commander of the Inquisition is one thing. King of Ferelden is another, no?"

Bethany near swallows her tongue. "We'd _both_ rather we didn't have to do that, I think! He'd be a terrible king. And it would—" she breaks off, inhaling sharply, has to shake her head, "—Andraste, no. Anything but that."

Sister Leliana settles, some, ruffled feathers smoothing down.

She's exactly like one of the ravens up in Skyhold's roost, beady-eyed and shrewd, sounding out where Bethany stands. Maker, the _last_ thing her family needs is a claim to the Ferelden throne; they've got enough of a headache with Mother's Guild contracts, and Bethany doesn't want to subject her daughters to dealing with that kind of royalty, to make no mention of Malcolm, who _absolutely_ doesn't need that in his life.

And Alistair—well, Alistair feels more or less the same, with the added benefit of a grudge.

"You can ask him, if you'd like," Bethany offers. It's easier to be straight-forward, in this. Flirting with ruling a country is not a game that Bethany wants to play. "But I'm fairly certain Alistair would say the same."

"You have spoken of it, then."

"More than once," Bethany says, softly. The Sister doesn't need to know about all those dark, quiet conversations that she and Alistair had had, at the very beginning. When her worry and her fear had been the biggest thing in the universe, and only Alistair's hands on her shoulders had been able to guide her through.

Wanderers, in every sense of the word.

Sister Leliana hums and sits back, her shoulders relaxing a fraction. It's only now that Bethany sees how tense the Inquisition's spymistress had been; the number of lives that this woman holds in the cupped palms of her hands grows with every passing hour, all hung in perfectly suspended balance.

Andraste's pyre, what kind of wrench would a king-to-be put in the Nightingale's plans?

 _Not the kind that would live very long_ , Bethany thinks to herself.

One death isn't so high a price to pay. Even five deaths would be acceptable, because death is cheap when blood and water colour the rivers and demons drop from the sky. The Sister's gaze is far away, full of horrors that have compressed the brightly sweet lay sister that Bethany had loved listening to into a nightmare thing. One death or five or even a hundred—to save the world, there is nothing that Sister Leliana would not sacrifice.

Worse: it's only what Marian would do.

Even worse still: Bethany _understands_.

It's not something that Bethany can blame the Sister for. She remembers Kirkwall, and the bitter burning dark, and the way that it seemed like none of it was ever going to end. Like there was no coming out the other side.

The night always comes again.

But Bethany has learned that while it's true that the night always comes again, eventually, so does the morning. Dawn creeps its pale fingers over the sea, or the mountains, or even the death of everything that a person has ever loved.

The sun always rises, too.

And perhaps that's the more important thing.

Bethany reaches for her teacup, and puts it to her lips. She lowers her eyes, and doesn't watch the Sister anymore. The steam rising in curls from the boiling water has leavened to pearly spirals that fade in the light through the window.

She drinks, and savours.

(Oh, but it's cooled to such a lovely warmth.)

—

 _Dear Merrill,_

 _I hope you've been well. Ferelden is exactly the way I remember it—cold and wet and wild. I didn't realize how beautiful it is, or much I missed it? But I did, far more than I thought. The air_ smells _clean, here, it's the oddest thing. We're up in the mountains, and sometimes it feels like we're the only people left in the world._

 _I don't know how much Varric's told you. It's been… difficult, here. But I can't imagine it's been easy at home, either, Kirkwall's always such a mess. Has Sundermount calmed down? I hope it has, or at least that Aveline's been able to keep the demons from sending the city sliding into the sea. Have you heard from my sister and Bela? Have they been back at all? If they have, you're probably better off not telling me; Maker knows who's going to read this before it gets to you. And if you haven't seen them… well, I suppose that's just as well, isn't it._

 _This whole Inquisition business isn't what it was cracked up to be. I feel like I hardly see Alistair, anymore, he's always so busy. We both are, really; some days the only time I see him is when he's crawling into bed and we're both already half asleep. We're not cut out for being away from each other so much. I miss him. The_ twins _miss him. It's harder than I thought it would be, did you know?_

 _A lot of things are harder than I thought they'd be._

 _Merrill, I have a problem._

 _It's Malcolm._

 _You know he was a strange baby. He's an even stranger child; he's recently made friends with a woman who used to be the Grand Enchanter of the Circles. Maker, it's funny to watch him lead her around, I don't know how he gets away with it. But that's not the point. The point is that—_

 _Is it possible to do blood magic without meaning to?_

 _You know I wouldn't ask if it didn't matter. The first time it happened he was only a baby, and I wrote it off because it—it couldn't have been. I was sure it couldn't have been. But something happened, at Haven, and what I saw him do—_

 _I just need to know. Can a person do blood magic without meaning to?_

 _If you get a chance, I'd love to see you. I know it's difficult, and I know you're still keeping the elves out of the conflict as much you can; the timing might be bad. Have they stopped calling you Keeper, yet? I know you hate it, but I don't think that it's going to go away._

 _I miss you. Give Fenris my love,_

 _Beth_

Bethany sits back from Alistair's desk to survey the letter.

It's not a bad letter, as these things go. The ink will take time to dry, as ink does; she'll not send it until tomorrow, when Sister Leliana's ravens flock out of Skyhold's highest towers in the morning. It's half a miracle that Bethany didn't have to re-write the thing three separate times, because Maker knows she's always so worried about how things might come out sounding.

But Bethany is writing to Merrill.

And Bethany and Merrill have been friends for a very, very long time.

A truth to old friendships: honesty is a gentle killer, but only rarely a kind one.

As for kindness—

Well.

There's never enough of that, is there.

Bethany slips the letter into the top drawer of Alistair's desk. He'll see it there, but it doesn't matter if he reads it; it had been his idea to write to Merrill in the first place. And no one else comes in here save Ser Cullen, and he _never_ comes in here alone.

She'd leave it on the desk itself, but somehow, that feels a little bit _too_ exposed.

Better to put it away.

Bethany's good at that, after all.

Skyhold is a big castle. Strange that it's this big, tucked away in the mountains as it is, but big all the same; there's always something going on somewhere. Bethany leaves the letter and her husband's office behind, stepping outside and closing the door very quietly behind her. The reconstruction rings up from the far side the castle, but that's not a new thing. Skyhold is very loud, all the time. Sometimes rebuilding, sometimes music, sometimes laughter.

Sometimes, all three.

Bethany follows the noise. The tips of her fingers are cold and spattered with ink, because she's not a very careful writer; Liana is the same in this, but perhaps even bolder. Her daughters are as different as night and day, but they wear the same face. There is never a moment in which she does not adore them.

Bethany would wonder about it, but thinking about it too much makes her stomach clench.

(Andraste, but she doesn't want them to _lose_ one another.)

Down the stone steps of the battlements and a right past the tavern, grass growing green along the edges of the paths. It ought to be colder, this high up.

It isn't.

Bethany wanders inside the Grand Hall, and then abruptly, she freezes.

Varric is sitting by the hearth in Skyhold's Grand Hall, elbows on the table, with his head in his hands. He's not paying attention to anyone around him, which is strange: Varric tends to sit with his back to the fire so that he can watch every move that the people around him make in high relief. And while it's true that he's sitting with his back to the fire, this isn't the Hanged Man, and there's nothing familiar about the slumped cast of his shoulders.

"Varric?" Bethany asks, softly.

Varric looks up, and a funny little smile breaks out over his face at the sight of her. His eyes crinkle up, the broken line of his nose bunching. "Hey, Sunshine," he says. "Siddown."

"Oh, Andraste, what have the twins done, _now_?"

Varric barks a laugh. It's a miserable thing, all jagged around the edges and cracked right down the middle, and it's not a laugh that Bethany has heard out of him for a long, long time. Varric has many laughs: loud with ale and snarky under-his-breath and genuinely amused out of the corner of his mouth. This is not any of those laughs. This laugh sounds like a heartbreak.

(It's not one that Bethany's heard since before the world exploded. Yes, it's been a long, long time.)

"Shit," Varric says, rubbing at his forehead. "I _wish_ it were them. No, it's about your sister. Seriously, you're gonna wanna sit."

Bethany sits. "What did Mari do this time?"

"It's not what she did. It's what _I'm_ gonna do," Varric says. He rubs at the turquoise ring they'd found—Maker, _found_ , as though Marian hadn't ripped it from a dead dwarf's hand—in the Deep Roads; he wears it always, and Bethany thinks that it's become a habit. Something to calm him down. They all have their own little rituals.

"What are _you_ doing to do?"

"I'm going to write to her," Varric says, grim.

"Oh, Varric, _no_ ," breathes Bethany.

"This is bigger than me," Varric says. He looks so tired. "Bigger than _us_. I gotta let her know what's going on, because she should _be_ here. That thing—whatever that thing was—we killed it together, Sunshine. I know you remember."

 _Hear me, Dumat!_ Bethany remembers the howling of the darkspawn-magister- _thing_ , his claw-hook hands, the way the Taint seemed to grow right out of his skin. She remembers the crackle of lightning and the burn of fire and the freeze of ice, dodging around miniature mountains blown out of the ground, flinging furious magic over her shoulder to try to make even the slightest dent in its skin.

But at the end, the darkspawn-magister- _thing_ had been dead.

Full of arrows and dagger-holes alike, with black blood down its chin—it had been _dead_ , and no doubt about it. For the Maker's sake, Marian had _kicked the body_ , just to be sure! It had been dead! They'd made sure that it was dead!

(But not dead enough, clearly.)

"She'll drop everything to be here in a minute," Bethany says. "You know she will."

"That's not what I'm worried about," Varric says. He rubs the ring again. "It's—shit, Sunshine, it's the Seeker."

"You told her you don't know where Mari is, didn't you," Bethany finishes the thought for him.

Varric winces. "I told her I couldn't get in contact, yeah."

"Varric! That's _worse_!"

"Yeah, Sunshine, I'm aware," Varric exhales heavily. The tiredness on his face strikes Bethany, again; Varric looks _old_ , threads of white in his golden hair, dark smeary lines beneath his eyes. Losing Haven might have taken more out of him than she'd thought; people had died, and Varric can't stand it when people die. "She's gonna kill me."

Bethany goes gentle, leans against his shoulder. "No, she won't. She'll be upset, but she'll get over it. She can't really _blame_ you, Varric. It wasn't your fault."

"You give her too much credit," Varric chuckles, but only very softly, and there's nothing funny about it. "The Seeker's barely finished hating me."

 _Hatred_ isn't at all what Bethany sees when she watches Seeker Pentaghast and Varric. They revolve around each other like gravity, or magnets; pulled in and pushed away in equal measure. The vicious draw and the violent shove, the sparks from the scream of metal-on-metal. It's not a soft thing, and they bicker worse than an old married couple.

But they can't stay apart from one another.

And hatred? Hatred isn't that.

(If anything, Bethany thinks that Seeker Pentaghast hates how _fascinated_ she is by Varric. But again, that's something else entirely, and it's not entirely relevant to the conversation. Or at least, _Varric_ will think it not relevant. For someone with such a way with words, Varric is sometimes very dumb.)

"She'll get over it," Bethany repeats, a little more firm. "It'll be fine, Varric. Isn't that what you always told me about the twins?"

"The twins _probably_ aren't gonna to stab me for lying," Varric says.

"So why did you lie?" Bethany probes. Because it wasn't really a lie, was it? Or it was a lie, but it was the kind of lie that a person tells to save someone else an unnecessary hurt. Varric tells stories, but he always keeps the true ones close to his chest. "You didn't have to, you know. Mari would have understood. She wouldn't have blamed you, either."

"She's been through enough," he says.

Bethany looks at her old friend for a very long time. He squints right back, twice-broken nose twitching under her regard. She'd thought, once, that no one loves her sister the way Varric loves her sister, and this hasn't changed. But there's an edge to it, now, a defiance in the face of every named god. Varric _does_ still love her sister, and that's why he lied. Why he will _always_ lie, even in the face of Cassandra Pentaghast's wrath, and the end of the world, and all the things in between.

"We've all been through enough," Bethany tells him, softly. "All of us."

"Shit," Varric says. He nods, just a little, unconscious with it. "You're not wrong, Sunshine, but _shit_."

Bethany smiles out of the corner of her mouth. "You can blame me, if you'd like?"

"The Seeker'll just take that as license to go yell at Death Wish, and he's already terrified of her," Varric says wearily. "I don't need to listen to him and Curly whining at each other, I get enough of that already."

"I suppose that _is_ worse than Seeker Pentaghast being Seeker Pentaghast."

"Hardly," Varric snorts. "But I can usually shut them out. The Seeker's _loud_."

"So's my sister."

"Yeah, but I don't gotta worry about Hawke stabbing me, you know? With the Seeker, stabbing is always a concern, and she won't even buy me a pint, afterwards!"

 _You're so transparent, Varric_ , Bethany wants to say. "Do you miss her?"

"Hawke?" he asks. Swallows hard once, twice. Varric watched Bethany's sister become a legend and then close enough to a god that she became almost a myth, but it was the person underneath all the stories that he'd followed off the end of the earth. It's hard, loving someone like that. "Shit. Yeah. All the time."

"Me, too," says Bethany. She drops her head to rest of top of his. "And Bela. I miss Bela."

"Rivaini's a hard act to follow," Varric chuckles.

"Do you think she'll come?" Bethany asks. "Bela, I mean."

Varric's knuckles contract around each other, turn white with the pressure, then release slow. Bethany watches the way he works through it, motionless under the water-ripple of voices from around the hall. There's something of the smoke and the burning to him, then; Bethany thinks of the night of the Qunari rampage, and Isabela and Aveline screaming at each other in the foyer, and wonders what kind of tears Varric has had to weep.

"Probably better she doesn't," he says, at last.

"Why?"

Varric is not usually the kind to hesitate to say anything. Words come to him easy, and they always have; lightning-quick and lightning-sharp, Varric is a fast-talker born, because if no one can follow what you say, they can't catch you in a lie. Whether that's the little brother or the Marchant's Guild or just being Bethany's older sister's best friend—all of them, none of them, all of them again—in him, it is _there_.

He hesitates to say this.

"She wouldn't be safe here, Sunshine."

Bethany blinks at him. "Why not?"

"Tiny's ben-hassrath. And I don't think the Qun's forgiven her, yet."

The cognitive dissonance in the sentence is _startling_. The Iron Bull, ben-hassrath? The Qun's _secret police_? Andraste, Bethany has heard the man roar down a _bear_ , but she didn't think that that was something they liked to shout from the rooftops! She'd thought that things like that were meant to be _secret_! It's only a part of the name! And that doesn't even touch on the bit about the Qun's forgiveness. Does the Qun even have the _capacity_ for it? Would they, given the chance?

Oh, Maker, _what_ has her stupid sister gotten their family into _now_?

"No," Bethany says, her voice a little high and even a little more weird. "No, I suppose not."

Varric reaches over to pat her arm. "You gonna be okay there, Sunshine?"

It takes her a few deep breaths in through her nose for Bethany to find a leash on the tight panic squeezing inside of her chest. The Qunari hadn't even been _close_ to the worst thing to rage through Kirkwall while she'd called the City of Chains her home, but Bethany can't—she _can't_ — "Who else knows?"

"Nightingale, Ruffles," Varric says, not unkindly. "Her Inquisitorialness. Probably the Seeker. Can't say who else for sure, though."

The horrible panic in her chest sort of— _collapses_. Bethany's shoulders crumple inwards on themselves, the air sliding out of her chest like a knife out of a wound. She and Alistair don't keep secrets; she can't imagine why he wouldn't have told her, if he'd known about it. Maybe it wasn't something she _needed_ to know.

But more than likely, her husband hadn't known at all.

"Does _Bela_ know?"

"I told her why she might not wanna make an appearance, yeah," Varric says. It's so casual, the way he says it, that it almost hides the very deep bedrock of well-masked worry. "She's usually not that reckless. Not after—"

 _Not after Hawke took a giant sword to the stomach and almost died for it_.

The words hover in the air, unsaid.

(Sweet Andraste, but they don't _need_ to be said.)

Bethany looks at Varric, at the wordless misery that lines his face, at the white in his hair. There are days and days when she tries not to think about the Qunari because she can still feel her own scream in her throat, the clawing bloody _terror_ of that night so far gone but simmering still so close to the surface of her jugular. And it is true that Isabela had been _different_ after that night. More careful. More held apart.

More like she'd been carrying Marian's raw heart in her shaking hands.

what Isabela had meant to Marian had always been painfully obvious, but it hadn't been until the end that Bethany had understood what her older sister had meant to _Isabela_. Probably what she means, even still; it's not impossible to strip oneself of that bone-deep love, but not without changing entirely what one is underneath. It's like this: Bethany can't cut Alistair out of her heart without also cutting out everything that she is. Even if she wanted to, it would take becoming someone entirely new to make it happen.

Isabela can't cut Marian out without cutting herself away, either.

But that's what love _is_ , isn't it.

"I can't imagine that Bela liked that," Bethany says, flippantly as she can.

Varric snickers. "Putting it lightly, yeah, sure. Rivaini definitely _didn't like that_."

Bethany nudges him again. He looks a little better, and though that may just be the relief of the firelight, it's still _better_. There's less pain around his mouth, more of a quirk of amusement to his lips. _That's_ her sister's dwarf; out of his element, perhaps, and dragged halfways 'round the world to some godforsaken castle in the godforsaken wilderness in the arse-end of _godforsaken Ferelden_ , and maybe even lonely, a little bit, but—

Well, that's Varric, for you.

"What are you going to say?" she asks him. "How do you even know where she _is_?"

"My lips are sealed on that one, Sunshine," Varric says, and winks. "Plausible deniability, y'know?"

"For who?"

"Both of us, that's who!"

Bethany leans into him again, laughing, and this time loops an arm around his neck. Varric is infinitely huggable, and she clings to his neck for a long, comforting moment. He _smells_ like home, does Varric; smells like sea salt and foundry grit and the Hanged Man's peculiar ale soap.

She breathes it in, thinking of the sun shining off the Waking Sea, and she doesn't let go.

—

"Mother," Liana announces, "I want to be Seeker Cassandra when I grow up."

Alistair spews ale halfway across the table. Ser Cullen hacks up a lung. Bethany, who is entirely unsurprised by this development, plops her chin into her hands and smiles. "Oh?"

"She's _amazing_ ," Liana says, with all the hushed awe that she's decided the Seeker is so clearly due, great wide dark eyes in the teardrop of her face. "She knocked Uncle Cullen down _three times_ today, I saw!"

Ser Cullen groans.

Alistair, on the other hand, is delighted. He _beams_ at Lia, a smarmy glint to it that Bethany knows is going to expounded upon as soon as her babies have been put to bed. He is _terrible_. "Did she, now?"

" _And_ she knocked down the Iron Bull! She didn't even have to _try_!"

"Lia, you promised," Ser Cullen groans again. He is never going to live this down, and he knows it. _Alistair_ is going to make sure that he never, ever lives this down. Bethany can hear the teasing already: Three times? _Three times_? Maker's breath, man, you've lost your pants!

Liana is unconcerned by Ser Cullen's despair. She shrugs a shoulder like a crow, the picture of childhood disdain, shaking out golden-dark curls, her freckles winking. "I promised I wouldn't tell _Father_. And I didn't! I told Mother. Father just happened to be here, too."

Oh, Andraste, their daughter is _far_ too young to be this much of a sneak!

Alistair stares at Lia, solemn with a hand over his heart. Says gravely, "You, miss, are too much like your aunt."

(He proceeds to undercut the gravity of this statement entirely by leaning over to kiss the top of their daughter's head. Bethany pretends not to see the sweet that Alistair presses into Lia's palm. There's no helping her husband when he gets like this. Bethany is not even going to try.)

"Aunti Mari always says we need to be more like her, and that we'll have more fun that way," Lia counters primly, before stuffing an entire roll of bread in her mouth.

"Charming," says Alistair, which is awful mostly because he means it. He reaches over to ruffle Lia's curls. "Try not to talk with your mouth full, sweetheart, your gran will never forgive me for ruining your manners."

"I miss Gran," Carina says, voice small. Bethany's middle child stares down at her food, brow furrowed. She hasn't eaten very much. Bethany's breath catches in her throat.

"Rina—"

"I do, Father! And Orana. And Dog. I miss _home_."

Bethany glances at Alistair out of the corner of her eye, biting down on the despair that wells in her throat. The apologies from the day with Lady Evelyn are bitter on her tongue, and Bethany can taste them, still. She'd wondered how long this would take; it's happened sooner rather than later, but yet still later than she'd expected.

The missing rings hollow in Bethany's chest, too.

And there are only so many things that distract her children. Perhaps they've all been used up.

Skyhold doesn't have nearly half the wild children that Haven did. They've all been corralled, kept closer to their parents than they used to be, and most of them are down the mountain now, besides. Bethany understands; for most folk, Haven was the first home they'd lost.

And the first lost home is always the hardest.

(Which isn't to say that it's ever easy to lose a home. It never is. But there is a rhythm to losing, and it's not one that's so simple to forget. It's just not much fun to learn in the first place, is all.)

"Rina, darling, I—" Bethany starts, but Ser Cullen gets there first.

"Why don't you write to your Gran?" he says, markedly gentle. He's put his cutlery down, and is looking very intently at Carina, all of his attention focused. Ser Cullen is very particular about how he eats: plate always scraped clean, silverware placed lateral, side-by-side, across his dish; the meticulous order to the deconstruction of his meal. Bethany hasn't ever seen anything else like it, but she also grew up with Marian and Carver, who have the table manners of wild animals at best.

Lia squints. "What d'you mean?"

"Write a letter to your Gran," Ser Cullen says again. He doesn't shrink under the crooked lift to Alistair's eyebrow. "You both know how, and I imagine she'd like a letter."

Lia and Rina pause to digest this information in the way that they do, conferring silently over the detritus of evemeal between them. It's not particularly _new_ information—Maker knows, Bethany asks them to write to her mother at least once a week—but present from Ser Cullen it is a different thing.

"We _could_ ," ventures Carina.

"We _could_ ," agrees Liana. She cocks her head, and then grins brightly, jumping up from the table and sprinting off. "Race you!"

"Not fair, Lia!" Rina manages, scrambling away after her twin. Bethany doesn't bother to call them back over their atrocious lack of table manners. They know better, but Andraste's pyre, this probably isn't worth the fight.

Besides, the whole thing is quite sweet.

(Well, it'd be quite sweet if they weren't such a terror. Sometimes Bethany thinks that she let her older sister have _far_ too much influence on them. The twins are wild, but they're also—young, and free, and bright. She doesn't want to quell that. She doesn't want to quell _them_.)

"That's terrible," Alistair says, frankly.

"At least it's not my sister?"

"Yes, but—"

"The Champion isn't _here_ ," Ser Cullen says, dryly. He helps mop up the table, which is highly appreciated. "And Lady Cassandra _is_."

"S'pose so. Oh, hey, mate, I heard you've been adopted," says Alistair, casual as anything, once the twins are out of earshot. Bethany smiles and ducks her head; she busies herself with cleaning Malcolm up and settling him down in her lap, a sweet warm bundle of fragrant skin. She tucks them both under Alistair's arm, and it's a little more comfortable, like this. Andraste knows that she's happier for it.

"Pardon?" coughs Ser Cullen.

Oh, the poor boy, he thought he'd escaped the teasing. Bethany smothers half a giggle into Malcolm's hair. _Sorry, Ser Cullen. Not today_.

"You never struck me for a cat person, mate," Alistair continues, lightly. He grins at Bethany, because he is wretched. Andraste, she loves him. Why does she love him? "I s'pose having a girl changes things, though. Is it really called Bread?"

Ser Cullen must realize at this moment that neither Bethany nor Alistair have actually changed at all, and that they are both precisely as awful as they'd been all those years ago when they'd left him to manage Solona and Marian all on his own. He groans for a third time, drops his face into his hands, shakes his head.

(If Bethany didn't know better, she'd think he were sobbing. It really ought not be this funny.)

"He's Lady Trevelyan's beast," Ser Cullen manages through the gaps in his fingers, "—but how did—who _told_ you—why must you always _know_?!"

"That's my fault, I'm sorry," Bethany says, a little apologetic, even though she isn't really sorry at all. No one needs to be teased the way that Ser Cullen needs to be teased; this hasn't changed, not even once through the entire long decade that Bethany has known the man sitting in front of their fire. Ser Cullen is still tall and pale and curly-haired, and still _desperately_ in need of cheering up.

It's also very funny, which probably contributes.

"Lady Bethany," Ser Cullen says, scandalized. "I thought you weren't—what— _why_?"

"You know I tell Alistair everything," Bethany says, shrugging delicately. "And I talked to her for a bit, the day before yesterday. She's very nice."

Ser Cullen makes a sound highly reminiscent of a dying goat.

Bethany and Alistair wait patiently for him to finish expiring; it's a graceless thing, really, but between the coughing and the sputtering and the exceedingly loud, exceedingly unnecessary denials, Bethany leans back into Alistair's chest and finally allows the exhaustion of the last few days to get to her. Between everything—Maker, _everything_ —it's half a miracle that she hasn't entirely keeled over yet.

Alistair, as though he can hear it, leans down to press his mouth to her shoulder.

"Long day?" he murmurs. It's a funny little echo of the battlements, like a cracked mirror.

Bethany finds herself nodding, twisting a little to sit herself closer into the cave of his chest. Malcolm makes a sleepy noise against her throat. Alistair's hands are steady on her hips, the heat of his skin seeping into her own and settling like an old comfort along her bones. Ser Cullen is still doing his very best to choke up the inside of his body.

Bethany blows out all the breath in her lungs.

 _Well_ , she thinks, allowing Alistair to keep her weight. _Alright, then._

—

.

.

.

.

.

 _tbc_.


	6. the sun goes quietly

**disclaimer** : disclaimed  
 **dedication** : to Jupiter, like every other time. also to Phil, who is my worst best friend.  
 **notes** : listen yes i know i expanded the chapter count AGAIN but listen. LISTEN.  
 **notes2** : i lifted some of the dialogue at the ritual tower out of the game, because reasons. not all of it, but some.  
 **notes3** : WHADDUP I LOVE MARIAN HAWKE SHE'S THE WORST

 **title** : the sun goes quietly  
 **summary** : There is a new Commander in Haven. — templar!au part ii; Alistair/Bethany.

—

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.

.

.

.

It takes a great deal of work to come stomping back into Skyhold dripping wet and grouching about it.

Alistair manages it, regardless.

"The bloody rain followed us all the way back," he growls. "They told me it was Crestwood, not the sodding Storm Coast! No, stop laughing, you think this is funny but I'm the one about to get in bed with you!"

Bethany squeaks, laughter at the terrible pun— _sodding_ —cutting off abruptly as Alistair does precisely as he's threatened, and crawls in beside her to scrub his entirely-soaked self all over her. He manages to smother her shriek with his grinning mouth, swallowing down the sound before it wakes their children.

"You're cold!" Bethany says, _complains_ , trying and failing to shrink away from the drippy wetness of him but still not even pretending to push him out of bed. There are some things that a person just doesn't do, even when their husband is insistent of freezing them half to death.

"And _you_ should be asleep," Alistair says, which is not a rebuttal at all. He's skinned himself down to nothing but breeches; at least his skin is warm, even if the rest of him isn't. "But here we both are! Strange how that happens, isn't it?"

"I was _trying_ to sleep, and then _someone_ came in grumbling like a wet mabari and made the sheets damp! I'm never going to get to sleep, now."

Alistair snorts. "No sleep for you, not on my watch! Incidentally, Beth, have you heard from your sister?"

"No," Bethany frowns up at him as he makes himself comfortable, arranging himself around her. In the half-darkness of the embers of the hearth, Alistair looks soft, smudged edges blending into the gloom. Her golden man, shadowed and sweet.

"No reason," he murmurs. Alistair holds her very gently, the chill and the wet fading as they breathe together.

This, Bethany thinks, is a lie.

There is a reason he'd ask. There is _always_ a reason he'd ask.

So it's a lie, but it's not a lie that she wants to call him on. And not even really a lie, more an omission. Not really. Not when it's late and he's here and it's been a near fortnight since they've had the opportunity to be like this together.

Bethany hates how envious of the Inquisition she is. It bothers her; saving the world takes up his time, but she can't begrudge him for it. Alistair has a habit of committing to things that he shouldn't commit to, even when that thing is Bethany herself. And right now, he's got a continent full of demons fallen out of the sky, and people keep looking at him for advice, and she knows that he's not much better at that than she is, but—

But Andraste, she _misses_ him.

(It's one thing to miss Kirkwall and her mother and her sister. It is entirely another to miss her _husband_ , who sometimes is the only grounding touchstone she has left.)

Bethany buries her face into Alistair's throat with great prejudice.

"Beth, love?" Alistair asks into her ear, voice gone gentle. He must be able to feel the change in her, the tensing of muscles, the sudden sharp curl of her hands into fists against his chest. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," she whispers. "I'm fine."

Alistair hums a small sound of deep contentment into her hair, hands catching sleepily on her hips to drag her a little closer. A lie for a lie; he's able to tell, too, but sometimes it's kinder to pretend that they both don't know exactly what the other person is talking about. Alistair drags her closer still and Bethany thinks that they're never going to be able to be close enough. She pulls the blankets tighter around them, layer on layer, down, and down, a little lullaby of skin and sleep.

If the stars could sing, it would sound something like this, Bethany thinks.

Alistair's breathing evens and slows against Bethany's cheek. Even in his sleep, he keeps her pressed tight into his chest; sometimes there is an insurmountable grief inside of Bethany's heart, but it quells under Alistair's hands.

All she knows is to be with him.

Bethany exhales, and closes her eyes.

—

"Oh, Maker, look at you! You're all grown up!"

Bethany blinks.

She knows that voice. She knows it laughing, she knows it snickering, she knows freezing cold and doling out death as a matter of course. She knows it sad and she knows it smiling, knows it threaded through with silky charm, threaded through with lies. Know it bitter. Knows it bloody. Knows it through smoke and flame and always pushing someone away.

Oh, yes, Bethany _knows_ that voice.

"I'm up here, Bethy," laughs the voice.

Bethany looks up.

Marian Hawke hangs over the battlements, arms crossed, grinning down at her baby sister like a loon. Her hair's a little longer than Bethany remembers, and there are a few more lines around her eyes, but these are the only changes; Marian is Marian, even now, even still. Shorn ink-dark hair, bright blue ice eyes, nightmare claws for hands.

The Champion of Kirkwall has aged well.

The only thing missing is the smear of blood across her older sister's face.

Bethany is up the battlement stairs with her arms thrown around her older sister's neck before either of them have quite realized what's happening.

The Hawke sisters cling to each other for a very long time.

It's hard, you see, when the past is the only thing that keeps a person grounded.

"That was… fast," Bethany tells her older sister, when they're finally on level ground. What's a hello? Who needs those? She brushes curls out of her face and stares. "Varric only told me he was writing you the day before yesterday."

Marian grins out of the corner of her mouth. "He underestimates me! I was already on my way. Did you really think I'd leave you and your templar alone for so long?"

"Yes," Bethany says, flatly. "You never write Mother back, she's been complaining about it. Where've you been?"

"Llomeryn," Marian says, breezy as the day is, all cheer and blue skies. It's a strange dichotomy on a Champion who'd built her legacy on violence and reaction and starting a war for her mage of a little sister. "Where else?"

"Oh, really, the pirate nest. And Bela? Where's she?"

"Having fun without me, I'm sure," Marian says, but something crystallizes in her face for a sheer heartbeat. It's a nothing, a pull-back, a stake in the ground. Wherever Isabela is—and wherever she is probably is still in Llomeryn, fuming about being left behind—it's not here, and likely won't be any time soon.

They'd fought about it. Bethany can tell.

Here's her sister: killer, Champion, _liar_.

But Bethany doesn't call Marian on the lie. If it had been Alistair, she'd not want to hear it, either. Sometimes you have to do things for yourself, even if they make you ugly all the way down. Sometimes, you do what you must, to survive.

Bethany exhales, very slowly.

"I'm glad you're not dead," Bethany says, quiet and honest, only a little bit shattered.

It's been a long time.

"Me, too," says Marian, and reaches across the space between them to wrap her arms _fiercely_ around Bethany's shoulders. "I'd be very put out if I was dead."

"You hug like a dead fish," Bethany says, hiccupping a little, not quite laughing and not quite crying. She clings to her older sister tightly. It feels just the slightest bit like going home; like after all this time, they're still in Lothering, and she's still fifteen, and it's the night before Marian disappeared into the ether for three whole years. For a moment she doesn't know Alistair, and she doesn't know her children; all she knows is that Marian is always leaving, and then she and Carver will be alone.

"How rude," says Marian, and holds on so tight that it hurts.

 _Things lost to the fire_ , Bethany thinks, not for the first time in her life. She's going to have bruises, finger-marks dug deep into her arms, and it'll hurt like it always hurts until it goes away. Marian and left Kirkwall to give them all some space to breathe and try to get their lives back in order, and maybe it had been a selfish thing, but selfishness never accounts for the missing.

(Alistair is going to mutter about the bruises, if he sees them; Maker knows he hates it when she's in pain. Bethany resolves to magic them away before he has the chance, but maybe not quite yet.)

The Hawke sisters let each other go, eventually.

"Did you even tell Bela you were leaving?" Bethany asks.

"I did," says Marian. "She hates it, but she understands. I _did_ have to promise I'd come back."

And this, this alone—it's enough.

Bethany doesn't think there's ever been a time when Marian's actively said _goodbye_. Her sister doesn't excel at them; they're uncomfortable at best, absolutely disastrous at worst, and often they don't happen at all. Marian slips away in the night without a word. It's what she does.

If Isabela's managed to extract a goodbye, fleeting or not—

Maybe they really _have_ grown up.

Bethany leans against her older sister, shoulder to shoulder. Skyhold hovers around them, yellow-green with the endless autumn bubble that envelops the castle. "Are you going to have supper with us, then?"

"And miss the chance to make tawdry jokes at your templar over your children's heads? Bethy, darling, you wound me. I would never! Let's invite Varric."

"Varric's always invited," Bethany says, because he _is_ , though how often he's taken her up on it is circumspect. He blames himself for all of this. Varric's just like that; he picks the thorny things, her sister's old friend. "You know that."

Marian glances at Bethany sharply out of the corner of her eye, a strange thing, held just a moment too long. "Do I?"

"You should," says Bethany. "You started it."

"I suppose I did," Marian hums the words. "And our other little templar? What about him? Will he grace us with his presence?"

"Ser Cullen?"

"That's the one, yes."

Bethany hesitates. She'd love to say _yes_. But Alistair still—there's still a levee between them, a gap that Bethany isn't sure they've quite figured out how to bridge. Trust, and friendship, and twenty-seven dead children. It's no small thing, for all that they've both made strides in the mending.

"They haven't kissed and made up yet, then," Marian says when Bethany still can't quite find the words. She wrinkles her face up, inelegant with it. "Well, that's unfortunate. Here I was, hoping to make everyone deeply uncomfortable just by existing!"

"You never change, do you," Bethany sighs.

"I try not to," Marian says lightly. "It seems like so much work."

Bethany can't help the laugh that escapes her. Andraste, her sister. The world's falling apart and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, and Marian—

Marian manages to be Marian, even when she doesn't want to be.

Bethany's sister stretches, all of the vertebrae in her spine popping loud enough to hear. Neck, elbows, knees, hips; she's always _pop-pop-popping_. Bethany winces.

"Anway, what's this about Varric and the Seeker?"

"What?" Bethany blinks at her sister. "What about them?"

Marian nods to the windows of the tavern. For a moment, Bethany isn't sure what she's looking at—there's a flash of Varric's chest, a truly _seething_ Lady Cassandra, and—

Furniture goes flying past the window in a blur.

Oh, _dear_.

Varric and Seeker Cassandra are glaring at each other, a table between them and a broken chair. The Lady Inquisitor stands at their halfway point, on neither side, a neutral observer for all that she's clearly a wall.

Neither Bethany nor Marian can hear what Seeker Cassandra is so furious about, but it's not a hard guess: she's standing right next to Bethany, after all. Because the Seeker had wanted Bethany's sister for Inquisitor, but Marian had already disappeared. It's turned out for the better, Bethany thinks—her sister has no patience, and wouldn't have had half the sensitivity necessary to judge anything for anyone. Lady Ellana is a much better choice, for all that she's so young.

Marian finds murder a _far_ too expedient problem solver, to have been a decent Inquisitor.

But Varric spins tales, and Seeker Cassandra has never taken well to story-tellers; she is a Seeker of _Truth_ , and Varric is not so good at truths. This is especially so when the story-teller in question swore up and down that they couldn't contact the Champion of Kirkwall, no madame; Bethany has no doubt that this is the crux of whatever is happening in the tavern.

The space between a truth and a lie is the blurred line between the sea and the sky on the horizon of the Waking Sea, when Varric is the one doing the telling.

It must burn.

"Oh," says Marian, intrigued. She folds her arms one over the other, crimson and purple flashing over silverite, and leans forward. "Look at that. He cares about her."

"Pardon?"

"He does. I haven't seen him so upset since—oh, never mind, it doesn't matter. Has anyone teased him about it?"

"Mari, _what_ are you talking about?" Bethany asks, a little frustrated. She hadn't known that translating Mari-speak was a learned behaviour, a talent that she could lose without practise. It's harder to understand her, now. It sticks in Bethany's throat like broken glass.

"Varric," Marian says, easily. "Just Varric. But don't worry, it's fine, I'll take care of it."

"I feel like you probably shouldn't?" Bethany hazards.

Marian grins out of the corner of her mouth again, softer, warmer. She colours up autumn, the afternoon sun painting her gold and red, the blacks and the blues of the bruising fading beneath it. For a moment, she's only Bethany's older sister again, and nothing more.

"I'll be careful," says Marian. She reaches out to tug on one of Bethany's curls. "If I don't tease him, who will?"

Bethany thinks that Varric has probably had enough teasing for a lifetime, but—

Varric loves Marian, too.

And there's something here to be said for old friendships that aren't touchable by time or tide; Bethany only has one of those, and it's different with Merrill. Bethany never gave Merrill parts of her soul to hold the way Marian and Varric have done for each other.

They're not in love. They're in something rather more painful than that.

Bethany watches as her sister turns her attention back to the tavern and the courtyard, gaze skittering away, watching as Varric leaves the building rubbing exhaustedly at his face.

She realizes that she only has her sister for one minute more before Marian calls Varric up to dissect whatever it was that encounter was. Only one minute more, and then Marian Hawke will become the Champion of Kirkwall, and Bethany will lose her to it again.

Bethany keeps her peace.

That's just the way her sister is, after all.

—

"Set the table for nine, Bethy."

"Nine?" Bethany frowns at her sister. "Why nine? Even with Varric and Ser Cullen, there's only eight of us."

"Humour me," Marian says, lips curling up.

It's never a good thing when Bethany's older sister says _humour me_ in that particular tone of voice, but what else is there to do? There are no wars out here in the mountains to wage, no causes to champion, no giant spiders nor Carta thugs nor lyrium-addled templars to go about murdering. What could it hurt?

Bethany sets the table for nine.

This is not a mistake. Ser Cullen arrives at six on the dot, carrying flowers. He offers them to Bethany, only a little awkwardly.

"Oh, sit down, Ser Cullen," Bethany says, smiling. "Thank you for these, though, they're lovely."

He flushes faintly pink, and goes to sit.

Varric turns up at half-six. He has ink on his nose, is muttering quietly under his breath about _legs_ and _the Seeker's gonna hate that_ and _it'll be hilarious_ , and Bethany doesn't ask about it. She remembers his hands on his face outside the tavern; even with furniture flying and Lady Cassandra on the warpath, Varric hadn't been able to look away.

He has a very terrible habit of falling in love with people who are only going to wreck him.

Bethany touches his shoulder.

Varric grins up at her, and she thinks he understands. Before either of them has a chance to say anything more, however, Varric is nearly bowled over by a matched set of little girls trying desperately not to shriek with glee at the sight of him. Of all the people the twins call extended family, Varric is their favourite. They've abandoned Ser Cullen in favour of him, at any rate, and that does say something.

"Uncle Varric! You came! You're _here_!"

Once upon a time, Bethany had the thought that Varric was going to go to his grave talking her sister into legend. She still thinks that's the truth; from the way he gathers the twins up and holds them close, Bethany thinks it's going to be them he's telling the story to.

"I promised you, didn't I, kiddo? Shit, did you grow again? I saw you two days ago!"

"Language, Uncle Varric," Lia says, scrunching her face up.

"You're turning into your grandmother, you know that?"

" _Rina's_ going to be Gran," Lia sniffs, and Rina nods emphatically. This is clearly something they have discussed. " _I'm_ going to be Seeker Cassandra."

"Lia, kiddo, I love you, but you need to sort out your priorities," Varric says grimly. "The Seeker's terrifying."

"You like her," Rina says, wisely.

Varric is scandalized. "I do _not_ —!"

Bethany hides a smile behind a hand, and looks down only when she feels a tug on her skirt. She blinks down at her son.

"Mummy," Malcolm says, very seriously, "Where's Auntie Mari?"

Bethany frowns at him. "You know, I don't know where she's gone, darling. She was just here, and she _did_ say she was going to be here for supper…"

As if in answer, the door swings open, and Marian parades in with her shoulders thrown back and her head held high, leading an extravagantly tall dark-haired man in silver-and-cobalt armour behind her. Bethany has to look up and up and up.

Oh, Andraste, _Carver_.

(She should have known, really. Marian _would_ have cooked this up: Wardens always should have meant Bethany's twin, and she has no idea how the thought of it slipped past her.)

"Auntie Mari!" Mal shouts, and wiggles out of Bethany's arms to streak across the room and attack Marian's knees.

Bethany is left to stare at her twin, and to keep herself from throwing herself at him.

Carver, long-suffering, spreads his arms. "Are you going to hug me, or do I have to beg?"

Bethany is across the room faster than Malcolm had been, her arms tight around Carver's neck. He's her twin, and there are some things that never go away: the tension in her chest when he's gone is one of them, relieved only by knowing that he's safe. She's learned to live with it, with that phantom limb, that phantom pain; it's a scarred-over part of her soul.

Not easy, but survivable.

"Buttercup, you're choking me," Carver says, a little frantic. "I can't breathe."

"That's not a _hello_ ," Bethany says, sniffing into his collar; it takes everything she has left inside of her to let go of him. The metal of his armour bites into her skin, scuffed and scratched all over. There's a scar through his eyebrow that she doesn't remember, and he's just a shade too pale, as though he hasn't seen the sun in months. Carver looks older, different lines around his eyes, but despite it, despite it all—

Bethany's twin looks settled inside of his own bones.

Maker, it makes her heart hurt.

"I told you not to worry," says Carver, very gently. He scrubs at his hair, trying to put himself back to rights. "I'm not dead, see?"

"No, I guess not," Bethany says. "Would it kill you to let us know that more often, though?"

"Probably?" Carver hazards.

"Carver!"

"What? Marian's no better, I don't know why you're yelling at me."

"Because there's no point in yelling at our sister, she does whatever she wants and you know it," Bethany says. They slip back into this so easily, even over the sound of that self-same sister cackling as she tosses Mal high into the air. "I know you hate letter-writing, but could you try? Please? For me?"

Carver actually _grumbles_. "I'll try."

Bethany can only reach up to wrap her arms around his neck again, the tightness in her chest eased just a little by the vice-grip she has on him. Carver allows this, and allows this, and allows this some more.

(She doesn't think of all the lost time. She doesn't think of Kirkwall, or their little house above the foundries, or the way Carver had always stretched out in a patch of sunlight like a particularly indolent cat. She doesn't think of it, and it's better that way. It is.)

Supper is always an affair, even when there _aren't_ four extra people squished around the table.

"I made a friend, Auntie Mari," Malcolm announces around a mouthful of sop, once they're all well and truly into supper. Dark hearty rye bread, just-baked down in the kitchens. Chestnuts and peas that the twins both hate with a passion, cut with parsley and wild sage and just a little bay salt for taste. Shredded druffalo and bright sweet little red berries baked into a pie, which they eat just fine.

"Don't talk with your mouth full, Mal, your gran really is going to kill me if she catches you at it," Alistair says, mildly.

Malcolm obliges this request with little ceremony; chews, swallows. Every day he's a little better, a little more agreeable, a little less shy. Grand Enchanter Fiona has been good for him that way, Bethany reflects.

"Oh?" says Marian. She leans an elbow against the table, chin in hand, and smiles. "Who's that, then?"

"Gran' Enchanter Fiona," Mal says, very seriously. He struggles with the _d_ at the end of _Grand_ , and it's far more adorable than it has any right to be.

Marian smiles a little wider. "Why do you like her, Mal?"

"She's nice," he says. Bethany watches him hesitate, fallen leaves in the summer, little pieces swirling away. Andraste, she knows Mal's been lonely. Her son glances at her, and Bethany nods. _Go on_. "She lets me show her things."

Bethany thinks of Malcolm, so solemn as he leads the Grand Enchanter around by the hand.

Maker, she wishes she could be better. Somehow, it always feels like she's failing him.

But maybe that's just part of it, too. Loving someone. Maybe that's just part of loving someone.

Mal gets very quiet, eventually, the excitement petering out as his older sisters overtake the conversation, Liana talking animatedly at Ser Cullen and Varric and Marian, and Carina nodding right along besides. Her son slides down from his chair and comes to stand next to her, his little hands curling into her skirt.

"Want to come up?" Bethany asks.

Mal nods, and allows himself to be manhandled into the crevice between Bethany and the table, curling up comfortable in her lap. He peers around, pleased with the new vantage point, before he obligingly goes back to eating his supper. He's not picky, is Mal; he'll eat anything put in front of him, even if what's put in front of him is Bethany's plate.

Bethany and Alistair look at one another.

(They've tried to break Malcolm of the habit of going wherever he pleases when he's thoroughly done with his meal, but sometimes it's difficult; their son is very small, and Bethany is very weak to his unhappiness. He gets overwhelmed easily, too much noise and too many people. The cage of his mother's arms keeps him settled, and Malcolm is never upset by it. Searches for it, even. Maker, how is he going to survive without her, while she's gone? How will he survive without—)

Marian is watching them across the table.

The undercurrents here are not beyond the Champion of Kirkwall. She flashes Bethany a white-toothed smile, still leaning against her palm.

 _He's your son, and he's just like me_ , says that smile.

Bethany closes her eyes for one second longer than a standard blink.

Her _life_.

But it goes on, does life, and supper clatters to an end a full two hours later than it usually does. Liana and Carina are beginning to droop, leaving heavily against one another in the soft warm glow of the hearth's embers, and the talk has finally begun to wind down. Mal's already fallen asleep, face buried in Bethany's throat. She catches sight of a stack of cards in Varric's sleeve; once the little ones are in bed and well into the Fade, the adults will end up sitting around and drinking and losing what little coin they have to Marian's cheating and Varric's quick hands, as the adults are prone to doing. Ser Cullen might even stay a while.

A quiet night. A happy night.

Something to hold on to, when the world decides to implode.

"Bedtime for little girls, I think," Alistair says aloud, clearly thinking along the same lines Bethany is. He crooks at eyebrow at the twins. "Come on, up you get. I can't carry you both."

This is a _flagrant_ mistruth.

Without further ado Alistair scoops up both the girls, one on each arm. Bethany stands from the table, too, careful not to jostle Mal and wake him up; he needs more rest than everyone else put together.

"Talk amongst yourselves," Alistair says cheerfully. "We're going to put our children to bed."

Varric snorts. "Is _that_ what you kids are calling it, these days?"

Ser Cullen chokes on his ale.

Bethany rolls her eyes. It is going to be a very long night, if _that's_ already started. She follows Alistair into the dark of the little nursery room where the twins and Mal sleep, humming the low sweet notes of their lullaby at the back of her throat, closing the door behind her as gently as she can to cut off the noise from outside. The twins like to pretend that they're entirely too old for lullabies, now, but Malcolm has no such compunctions: he doesn't sleep near as well when he's gone without it. He hardly even clings to Bethany's neck when she finally manages to tuck him into his bed, still humming the songs she'd grown up hearing. Malcolm doesn't sleep in a bassinet anymore, and she's a little sad about that; it's a strange thing, watching her babies grow up.

"—you can pester your Aunt Marian in the morning," Alistair is telling the girls quietly as he gets them into their beds. "Please do, in fact, she needs someone to pester her."

Carina giggles sleepily. "Auntie Mari's the _best_."

"Yes, I'm sure you think that, she spoils you rotten," Alistair says.

"We're not rotten!" Lia protests.

"You're a little rotten," Alistair says, affection thick in his voice. "Try to get some sleep, you two, we don't want Mal waking up and demanding that your mother stay the night. We've all had a long day."

Alistair touches each other their heads in turn, so painfully adoring that it almost hurts to look at. Bethany wishes he got to spend more time with them. He's their father, and for so long he had been so absolutely _terrified_ of accidentally hurting them that every move he'd made had been vigilantly deliberate with it. And then he'd come around when he'd realized that the twins were a miracle in miniature, and now—

Now, the unfortunate truth is that somewhere along the way, they picked up the kind of responsibilities as can't be shoved off onto anyone else, and they're more or less back where they started.

Bethany thinks they'd both prefer it, if it weren't the case.

But there's the Inquisition, and her sister, and the Wardens. There's Corypheus—and it galls her, it _galls_ her, that this is something that they set loose on the world—and there's the templars, and there's the red lyrium that seems to be _everywhere_ these days. There are just more important things.

Maker, there are _more important things_ to deal with.

And so Bethany watches as her husband finishes up tucking their daughters in, and, Andraste, it's a small mercy for the privacy. They'd not had this, in Haven, not had the room. Skyhold isn't gigantic, as far as mountain fortresses go, but it's got enough space that they're not packed in like sardines in a tin.

"Goodnight, girls," Alistair murmurs. "Sleep well."

"G'night, Father," Liana says. Carina must already be asleep.

Alistair and Bethany slip back out into the cavern of the sitting room. Marian and Varric are heckling Carver, and Ser Cullen is sitting in between, very obviously desperate not to pick a side. Which is fair, actually, given that Marian is mental and Varric does nothing but egg her on, and Carver is a bit like a porcupine when he's on the defensive. He's bristly all over.

Except that right now, he's not.

Carver sits loose in his chair, bent over and gesturing _very_ rudely at Varric for what appears to be a deeply losing hand of Wicked Grace.

"Hah!" says Varric. "Eat it, Junior!"

" _Bollocks_ ," says Carver, with feeling. He turns to look at Bethany and Alistair. "Oi, will you two get over here and start losing so I'm not the only one?"

"Who're we losing to?" Alistair wants to know.

"Me," Varric says, gleeful. "And Curly, too, which is _hilarious_. Get over here, Death Wish, and bring Sunshine with you!"

Alistair pauses, looks down at Bethany. He arches an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

"I think we don't have much choice in the matter?"

"She's right, you don't!" Marian crows. She's clearly not playing this round, boots up on the table— _Marian_ , where are your _manners_ —and grinning widely. "We're going to play for knickers!"

"Sod _that_ —"

And this is how they pass the rest of the evening, trading barbs and cards and _not_ knickers, thank the Maker, although Carver does continue to lose very badly despite his very best efforts at not doing so. There's rather a lot of mead and eventually there's tea and biscuits, the easy slow winddown of a get-together. Ser Cullen is even grinning, by the end, and Bethany's siblings haven't gotten along so well since they were children. The lack of animosity hangs in the air like a widow's veil, fragile and ephemeral and strangely, beautifully, bright.

Bethany had wanted Kirkwall to be like this.

(She doesn't know how to articulate that this is how she'd wanted to Kirkwall to be, and there's no one she'd articulate it to except for Alistair, anyway, and Alistair is currently engaged in listening to Varric tell extravagant lies about Lady Ellana and the Blades of Hessarian, and about a possessed ram called _Lord Woolsley_ in Redcliffe. Bethany thinks that if Lady Cassandra were here, she'd probably try to toss Varric out the window.)

She drowses against Alistair's shoulder late, late into the evening. Ser Cullen makes his excuses just before midnight, and Carver not long after. Varric and Marian are the last to leave, the pair of them turned quiet and serious as the night's worn on, as they've always been wont to do.

It's nearly two o'clock before they're alone. On her way out, Bethany's sister's touches her cheek, grinning faintly, like a goodbye.

"Bedtime, now?" Bethany asks.

Alistair sighs. "No, sorry, Beth. I need to check the barracks."

"So late?"

"Yeah. Don't worry, I'll be back," Alistair says, gentle. He bends down to brush his lips over Bethany's forehead.

"Don't be gone too long," Bethany murmurs. She winds her hands into his shirt, tips her face up for a proper kiss. "We do need to sleep eventually."

Alistair laughs, low and breathless, and obliges her. "Give me half an hour, love. If I'm not back by then, you can yell at Cullen for it because he wrote the rounds."

"He did not," Bethany accuses, and Alistair laughs again.

"You're right, he didn't," he agrees. He kisses her again, regardless. "But someone's got to do it."

And then Alistair's gone, too, and it's just Bethany alone.

She spends a moment straightening up, mostly for something to do with her hands. It never feels right to go to bed without Alistair. No matter how many times she does it, it'll never, never feel right.

Bethany shakes off the melancholy.

Bedtime, then.

The door to their bedroom is cracked, a sliver of firelight filtering through. She doesn't remember leaving it open, but—

Oh.

"Lia? Sweetheart? Did you have a bad dream?" Bethany asks, startled into wakefulness at finding her oldest child in her bedroom. It's not often Lia what turns up, late at night; usually it's Malcolm, with his nightmares as they are, or Carina in a pinch.

Of all of Bethany's children, Liana is often the most stable.

But her oldest daughter is flopped down on the bed, staring very hard at the floor, brow furrowed as though she's attempting to mentally set it on fire. "You're leaving, aren't you? With the Inquisitor?"

"Lia—" Bethany starts.

"No, it's alright," Liana says. She sits there on the very edge of Alistair and Bethany's bed with her legs crossed, and looks up, tilting her head in a gesture highly reminiscent of Bethany's own mother. "You have to go, Uncle Varric said so. Is it going to be very long?"

"I think it might be, darling," Bethany says, softly. She sits down next to her older daughter, the long ochre curls on the girl's head braided out of the way. "I'm sorry."

"No," Lia says. She shakes her head, frowning just a little. "You need Father. Father needs you."

"You need me, too," Bethany murmurs. Her chest is tight. Andraste, her daughter. Liana is too giving for her own good, sometimes.

"Not as much as he will," Lia says. She uncrosses her legs, unfolds from the bed, and crawls into Bethany's lap. It's an unconscious thing, as though Liana herself isn't entirely aware she's doing it. The motion slips behind Bethany's heart and settles, settles. "That's why you're going."

"I suppose," Bethany tells her, quietly. She begins to undo the braid, careful with the ribbon.

Liana allows it. "And Auntie Mari, too. And Uncle Carver, and Uncle Cullen."

"Lia, sweetheart, if you want me to stay, I will."

Bethany's daughter shakes her head violently. There is a fierce pride in her face when Bethany takes a moment to look at her; Liana has taken the leaving inside of herself, made it a part of what she _is_. However much she knows of where her parents will be headed is circumspect, but she knows that it's no arbitrary thing.

"Is it going to be like home?" Lia asks, after a very long, unbroken silence.

"We're trying to make sure it _isn't_ like that," Bethany tells her. The braid forms even beneath her hands. She smooths a stray curl down. "One Kirkwall was enough, I think."

"Are we going to be alone?"

"Andraste, Lia, no!" Bethany says, aghast. "Absolutely not, darling, why would you even think that? I'd never leave you on your own!"

Liana shrugs. "I can look after Rina and Mal, Mother, you know I can."

"I know you can, but you shouldn't have to," Bethany says. She pauses, the only sound the howling of the mountain wind outside of the shutters and the glass. "I was going to ask the Grand Enchanter to look after you, actually. What do you think?"

Liana thinks this over for another long, unbroken minute. "Mal likes her," she allows. "She seems sad sometimes, though, when she looks at us. All three of us."

Bethany has noticed that, too. The sadness. "Is that a problem?"

"No," Lia shakes her head again. "Ow, Mother, too tight!"

"Sorry, dear," Bethany says, and forces herself to loosen her grip. It strikes her, sometimes, how very much like Alistair Liana can be, especially when she doesn't mean to. She undoes the braid, and starts again. "How do you think your sister will feel about it?"

"Rina'll be alright, too," Lia says. "We don't—you and Father, you don't do very well when you're away from each other for too long? We know that, so it's fine."

It's not fine, not really.

Unfortunately, Bethany can't exactly tell Lia that she's wrong, because she's _not_ wrong.

Neither Bethany nor Alistair does particularly well when they're left to their own devices. That's never been in question, but it's been only a recent development when it's been tested with any kind of veracity; so long as Alistair has something to do, he survives just fine, but Bethany—no, Bethany, not so much.

Being left behind is a terrible thing.

"I _will_ stay if you want me to, Lia. I don't have to go," Bethany stresses. She ties off the braid, done perfectly this time. Her daughter will wear the Waking Sea's tempestuous waves in her hair, tomorrow.

(Like a storm in stasis.)

"It's alright! Promise, Mother, it really is," Lia says. She darts up to press a fleeting kiss to Bethany's cheek, hot all the way through, grinning. It's so bright that the night outside doesn't feel so dark, and Bethany wants to die of it. Love. "We'll be good for the Grand Enchanter, and we'll keep Mal out of—well, out of _too_ much trouble?"

"I won't blame you if you can't," Bethany laughs, but it's a tremulous thing. "Lia—"

"Yes, Mother?"

"I love you, darling."

"Oh," Liana says, smiling Alistair's smile. "Thanks, Mother. I love you, too."

—

"Grand Enchanter, do you have a moment?"

The Grand Enchanter looks up from the thick tome she's been studying. She brightens considerably when she sees Bethany standing the doorway; her entire body perks up, just slightly, dark hair and dark eyes, all smiling.

"Madame Hawke, please," the Grand Enchanter says. "Come in. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Bethany steps inside the Grand Enchanter's rooms. They're up at the top of the mage tower, the very highest point of Skyhold accessible to most people. It's a bright, well-lit place, beautiful in its own way; crystals hang suspended from mobiles, strange golden instruments that spin and measure, a startlingly lovely astrolabe that charts the heavens in glittering silver magelight. There are books piled in every spare space, as well as many spare spaces as shouldn't be. Bethany knows that the Grand Enchanter spends a good deal of her time in the library, loudly and deliberately ignoring one Dorian Pavus despite his very best attempts at engaging her in theological discussions on the merits and drawbacks of Tevene magics.

There is an argument to be made for the Orlesian penchant for obfuscation, Bethany thinks. They muddy the waters of the experience, and the complication of it suits their slow tides and trades of influence.

Bethany simply does not have the desire to do it, not when what she wants is so much easier to attain by simply _asking_ for it.

She sits in the indicated chair across the Grand Enchanter's desk. It is a squishy chair, exquisitely carved, deep red velvet and soft. Bethany inhales.

"I have a favour to ask, Grand Enchanter."

The Grand Enchanter crooks on eyebrow at her. "Oh?"

"Alistair and I, we're—" Bethany presses her lips together, exhales slowly, heavily, pain hissing out through the lungs. "No, that's not right. Lady Lavellan's asked Alistair to go to the Western Approach with her. I can't let him go alone, but I can't—my children, Grand Enchanter. I can't put them in that kind of danger."

"No, you should not want to," the Grand Enchanter says. Her voice is low and musical, skipping over the consonants.

"I don't. So I—would you be willing to look after them?" Bethany asks. "Only for a little while, until we get back."

"Why me?"

"My son likes you," Bethany sighs, because this is the truth of the thing. She could have asked anyone—Lady Josephine certainly has more than enough resources to find someone to look after Bethany's children, and likely Sister Leliana would be willing to do it herself. The Adaar girl, Herah—she'd do it, too, she already looks after half of Skyhold's children and no one's asked it of her. It wouldn't be an imposition, Bethany knows.

But.

Mal likes the Grand Enchanter.

And Mal doesn't like _anyone_.

"My son likes you," Bethany says, again. "My son doesn't like anyone, Grand Enchanter. He likes you, and I trust you to keep an eye on him. Liana and Carina, they won't cause trouble, because they don't—they're not like that, and—Mal likes you," Bethany's shoulders drop. That's really what it comes down to, in the end. "Mal likes you."

The Grand Enchanter looks at Bethany for a very long time.

 _Oh,_ Bethany thinks. _That's what Lia was talking about. The sadness_.

"I-I don't mean to overstep," Bethany stammers a little. "But I thought—you might want to. You humour them, and they need that."

The Grand Enchanter shakes her head, a wispy movement.

"Non," she says. "It would be my pleasure. I will do it."

Bethany slumps backwards into the comforting velvet crush of the chair. Now that that's out of the way, the nervous energy that she's been carrying 'round the entire day drains out of her, and she sits there quietly for long breaths to try to gather her shattered pieces back together. She folds her hands careful in her lap, and she counts the beating of her heart: _one, two, one, two_.

"Thank you, Grand Enchanter," Bethany says, very softly. "I appreciate it."

It feels like she's always thanking this woman, and that still doesn't feel like enough. Grand Enchanter Fiona saved Malcolm's life when Bethany couldn't, and now she saves Bethany's sanity.

Andraste, but Bethany can't let Alistair go fight an ancient horror on his _own_. There's nothing inside of her that will stand for it.

In the scheme of owning and owned, they split each other open down the middle for the reds and the greys. There is no part of Bethany that isn't inscribed with Alistair's name; all of her bones are carved with the syllables that make him up, and it is a horrible thing, to belong so wholly to someone else. It is a horrible thing to know that there is nothing she wouldn't do for him, that her lungs are sore for love of him. It is a horrible thing, to be so _seen_.

But by the Maker on His defiled throne, Bethany wouldn't have it any other way.

"Would you like some tea?" the Grand Enchanter asks. There is something of kindness in it.

(The Inquisitor leaves for the Western Approach in a week. A week. And Bethany—Bethany will leave, with her.)

"Yes," Bethany says, smiles. Tremulous, tiny, terrified. "I'd love some."

—

Bethany has never seen a desert before.

She has discovered two things about the desert:

One, it is very, very hot. And two, she absolutely _hates_ it here.

The Western Approach is bleary orange-gold, heat rising in sunsick stomach-churning waves that give Bethany the woozies. The sun is too bright, here, burning in a way that feels heavy on the skin. Far in the distance, dark shapes move across the horizon; gurns, if they're lucky, quillbacks if they aren't, and phoenixes if they're _truly_ in trouble.

Bethany would shudder, except that it's so hot that she can't entirely think straight.

(Though, of course, this also might be attributed to the fact that Alistair currently has his shirt off, and Bethany, unlike _some_ people, is not allowed to divest herself of her clothes. She is also not allowed to yank him off his horse and drag him into bed with her to lick away the sweat shining on his skin. This is mightily unfair on many counts.)

"Drink something, would you? You look like you're about to fall over," Carver mutters, tossing a waterskin Bethany's way. She catches it and only fumbles a little, which is a good thing; Carver hasn't been hovering the way he used to be prone to doing, and if she'd lost hold of it, he'd surely start again. Her twin isn't sulking, precisely; _sulking_ isn't the right word. He's a little too old to sulk.

But Carver never dealt with heat well, even when they were children. This dry desert heat is likely torture. He's going to get a sunburn.

Bethany drinks, and then tosses the waterskin right back at him. "Take your own advice, Carver."

Carver, in true form, does not take his own advice.

Instead he pulls from a dark green bottle marked with his name, the contents murky and dark, sloshing thickly from behind the glass. He catches Bethany's raised eyebrows with a wry kind of smirk.

"Conscription ale," he says. "Tastes worse than it looks, but it's mine."

 _Not a lot of things are mine_ , Bethany hears. She makes a face. "It can't be _that_ bad. You used to drink Corff's brew all the time, and you were fine, then."

Carver waggles the bottle at her. "It's worse, I swear it."

"Fine. Are you going to share it, or not?"

"I've spit in it," Carver says, smugly. "Still want some?"

" _Ugh_ , no," Bethany says, scrunching her face. Horrible! Her twin is _horrible_! She'd thought she'd missed him, but clearly that had been a misplaced sense of nostalgia. Carver is as awful as he'd ever been! "Why must you be like that?"

"Because if I weren't, then I'd have to share," he says. He drinks again, and then tucks the bottle away. "Everyone has one, d'you know?"

"One what?"

"A bottle," Carver tells her. His mare whickers, and he smooths a hand along her neck. There's old familiarity to the movement, and Bethany has to wonder what on the Maker's green earth her twin has seen in the years they've been apart. "Piss-poor consolation prize, what with the darkspawn, but—"

"Better than nothing?" Bethany finishes the sentence for him.

"Better than nothing," Carver confirms. "Bethy—"

"Hm?"

Carver looks at her, for a moment. Just looks. He's got their Mother's gaze, bright, startling blue. Mari's gaze. None of Bethany's own children have it, and it's something she secretly is a little sad about, sometimes. The Amell eyes, gone, now.

"You look happy," he says. "I just wanted to say that. You do."

It's said so softly, Bethany can hear the apology in it. Horse-riding makes for difficult quiet conversation, but it makes physical acceptance of a long-overdue apology nearly impossible.

Still, she tries.

She leans over, fingers catching only the very edge of his elbow, and only for a fraction of a second. But Carver catches sight of it out of the corner of his eye, and it's enough. Bethany rights herself just in time to see Griffons' Wing Keep rippling into view like a heat mirage, and Adamant Fortress, a dark blur in the distance. But here, now, Tevinter ruins rise from just beyond Iska's Stand. Bethany's older sister is up ahead, and even from here, Bethany can see the death-grip tightness of her knuckles around the reins. The air is blisteringly dry, stinging at cracks in Bethany's lips. She doesn't think she's ever not going to be thirsty again.

"Bloody shite, here we go," Carver mutters. He swings down from his horse—helps Bethany down like an afterthought—and trudges through the sand to go corral the eldest wayward Hawke.

Bethany scrambles after him, dread welling up inside of her chest.

(At least her husband's put his shit back on. Armour. _That_. He's not going to die and she's not going to try to climb him. Progress, even if only a bit.)

"Oh, shite, there you are!" Marian laughs across the sand. "Family, this is Warden Loghain. Warden, this is my family. And of course, you've already met our lovely Inquisitor."

"You are a menace," says Warden Loghain, which Bethany is _absolutely_ inclined to agree with.

"So I've been told," Marian grins horrible. "But we're here now. Let's get on with it?"

"Fine," says Warden Loghain, voice hoarse. There is an eon of dust in his throat, from the way he sounds. It is a buried thing. "Whatever's happening has already started. We saw lights coming from the tower."

"It always has to be blood magic," Bethany's sister drops her head back, sighs heavily. "Why does it always have to be blood magic? Why can't it be, I don't know, something that's _not_ blood magic? Nugs? Carta? Maker, even walking corpses would be a novelty, at this point."

"That's still blood magic, you realize. Baby blood magic, but really—still blood magic," Alistair points out. Bethany digs an elbow into his kidney. Her husband is _asking_ for it, honestly.

The comment draws the Warden's attention. From the lines on his face, he is likely Bethany's mother's age, but there is something—there is a melancholy to his countenance that makes him seem much older. Despite the distinct lack of white in his hair, he carries himself as though there is a mountain heavy on his back. The weight of the world in grief.

The Warden freezes, staring at Alistair like he's seen a ghost.

"Shut it, you," Marian says. Gone is the good-natures banter of earlier, gone is the quiet peace. Here is the Champion of Kirkwall in all her killing glory, and its appearance wipes the Warden's hesitation clear from Bethany's mind. "Inquisitor, take point. I'll guard your backs."

The ritual tower rises above them, a monolith of glittering ancient metal and stone, already wet with blood. It courses down to sink into the sand; just looking at it, Bethany knows that that's what it was built for. Sacrifice a life, consume the power, and the emptied blood would drain away into the dirt.

Clean, but sick.

Bethany wonders about all the lives made forfeit, here at the end of the world.

"—in death—" and the words echo strangely across the ritual tower. The Wardens are smudges of blue and blinking silver, but the hole in the Veil is sickly, horrible green. The rage demon rises and burns. _Burns_. "Sacrifice,"

They're too far away to stop the binding. A flash of carmine light, and it's done.

The Warden boy—and he _is_ a boy, no mistake—steps aside.

From across the stone of the bridge, the Inquisitor sets her jaw, and stalks forward.

(They all follow her down. It's strange to be following someone who isn't Marian, like this. It's strange to have Marian at her _back_. Time slips through her fingers, silk, solid, weighted like a sword. She curls her fist around her stave, the heartwood warm beneath her hands, and thinks about what it means to die.)

"Inquisitor," the magister says, grinning meanly, and takes an excruciatingly ostentatious bow. "What an unexpected pleasure. Lord Livius Erimond of Vyrantium, at your service."

Oh, Maker. Bethany's heart slams into her throat.

He's a spindly thing, the Tevinter magister. Dressed all in white, bloodstone shining at his shoulders, greasy ink-dark hair pulled back into a short tail at the back of his head over a prominent forehead and an even more prominent, rather hooked nose. He wears a goatee and carries a stave, and his palms _crackle_ with a horrible red lightning that throws Bethany back to Kirkwall's explosion like it was yesterday.

Knight-Commander Meredith had crackled just the same way.

"You're no Warden, mage," croaks Warden Loghain.

"But you _are_ ," the magister says. He surveys them, lips pulled back in a sneer. "You're the one Clarel let slip, aren't you. And you've found the Inquisitor! How predictable of you. Have you come to stop me? Shall we see how that goes?"

"You won't be the first person I've killed today," the Inquisitor says.

"And I likely won't be the last," the magister says. "Wardens, hand up!"

The Warden mages, strung along the sides of the ritual tower, all raise their left hand at once.

"Hand down!"

The hands drop.

Carver hisses from somewhere behind her. "You _bastard_."

It's blood magic, there's no doubt about that. A blood _binding_ to be precise, the likes of which Bethany doesn't even want to think about. They've no will of their own, anymore, these Wardens. They're not even people, only things. And, Maker, _this_ is the demon army that the Inquisitor had been so wary of. Wardens. The end of the world. Her brother, listening to the Calling crooning in his ear. And for what? For this? For some mad ancient darkspawn to prove his mettle? Bethany near throws an arm out to trip her brother up, keep him rooted where he is; Carver has a tendency to throw himself at things without entirely thinking them through, first.

But she doesn't have to. Carver doesn't move an inch.

"What have you done to them?" Warden Loghain asks, quietly. A muscle jumps in his jaw.

"Me? Nothing. They did this to themselves! So frightened of a little false Calling, they looked everywhere for help," the magister says, smiles like a shard of glass. "I just gave them a little push."

"False?" Warden Loghain says. " _False_?"

The magister laughs, sharp and high. His teeth flash in the sun. "My master sang a little song for you, Warden! You should be so proud; he doesn't do that for just _anyone_!"

"Will he stop talking if someone kills him?" Alistair says under his breath.

"Quit trying your luck, kid. He's Tevinter, he's gonna talk us to death or die trying," Varric mutters, and Bethany thinks she hears her sister snicker.

"This was a test," the magister declares. "Once the rest of the Wardens complete the ritual, the army will conquer Thedas, and my master—my master will become a _god_."

"That was so much more than I needed to know," Inquisitor Lavellan says. "Thank you."

"Oh, please," says the magister. Power crackles crimson-orange around his wrist. "I know how to deal with you, you useless little _girl_ —"

And Inquisitor Lavellan lifts her hand, and tears a hole in the air behind him.

The magister goes flying.

It is _very_ satisfying to watch.

Long minutes pass.

No one dares to breathe.

The magister struggles to his feet at last, clutching at the wound in his stomach. Even from here, Bethany can see the blood, but—

"Kill them," he calls as he staggers away. "Kill them!"

The Wardens along the walls react to the command like it's deathless marching orders. The grim magic rising in the air clogs Bethany's nose, sudden and acrid, the rip and tear of flesh as a rage demon screams. Her stave is in her hands and her magic is at her fingertips. Bethany pins a horror into the ground, the screeching _keen_ rattling through her head. Maker's Fist, white-gold, the brittle breaking edges. Winter's Grasp, blue, so cold she can see her breath. Lightning arcing purple over her skin, _sizzle-hiss_! Force again, golden, the snap of spine and bend of bone.

Bethany slams one of the Warden mages down so hard she can _feel_ the shards of bone pierce into his brain. Her stomach knots, fizzing, hungry, _rip_ and _tear_ and _shred_! The Veil is so thin, here, the spirits pressing so close. _Bury_ _the wraithloom_? a voice murmurs. _Rend the lifeweave_? Cold fingers on her neck, _my sweetest love my shimmer gleamblossom my blackest heart taken out of my chest_?

She gasps. The blood hums all around her, twisted up terrible.

Oh, Maker.

Bethany wants to be sick.

She thinks of the foundries, and how young she'd been, and she thinks of her mother. Her _mother_ , who'd nearly lost her head, who'd nearly— _nearly_ —

It was so long ago, but it feels like only yesterday.

Bethany reaches out and digs her magic into the tower's foundations. It groans beneath her, a low, godless _rumble_ that she will never forget until the day she dies. She couldn't have done this, then, but she didn't understand the breaking of things, then, either; she'd been young and afraid and desperate to keep herself alive. Death drink, bitterale cut with sawdust, Kirkwall's grime mouldy on the walls— _I am free_.

She is not so young and not so afraid, anymore.

The magic is _right there_ —

"Beth!"

His voice pulls her out of it.

Oh, _Alistair_.

Her husband catches her tight around the waist and _yanks_ her into him, half-mad and absolutely desperate with it. Alistair grounds Bethany against him, blood spattered across his face. His hand knots in her curls, but he's gentle, so gentle, so painfully, horrifically _kind_ as he seals them mouth to mouth. Andraste, she wants him everywhere.

Bethany can still feel the tremble of her magic, the shatterpoints of this old structure glinting in her mind's eye, a little pressure here, a little pressure there, _we all fall down_. It would take nothing, nothing, nothing to rip it apart, and she could, oh, Maker, she _could_.

Gold and blue, like the entire world in her cupped palm.

Alistair's mouth burns the power away.

Bethany shudders and struggles and slowly, slowly fights her way back to him. The blood thrall is a lingering thing. She can feel it grinning at the back of her throat.

It's very quiet, once all the demons are dead.

"Sorry," Bethany whispers, swallowing hard.

"It was getting to me, too," Alistair murmurs. He presses his mouth to the line of her hair, kissing the words there. He's trembling, too, like his limbs have all turned to water and there's nothing left inside of him. He strokes a palm down her back; Andraste, she didn't think she'd ever be cold again, but the warmth of him is welcome. "Do you want me to—?"

"Yes, please," she nods into his chest.

The Cleanse washes over her, clear as a Hinterlands' glacial stream in spring, and the blood magic finally retracts its sensuous claws.

 _Again_ , she wants to say, but it won't help. _Don't leave me like this. I don't know what I am_.

But Alistair will likely need every drop of lyrium he's got left inside of him.

It's selfish, Bethany knows, to ask.

And so she doesn't.

Alistair looks at her for a very long moment, gaze searching. Bethany fucks her head down, tucking curls behind her ears. She doesn't rightly like who she is, right now. She isn't sure she knows _how_ to.

Another Cleanse washes over her, just as clear as the first.

Bethany's shoulders go down.

Alistair does always know exactly what she needs, even when she doesn't say it. Bethany slumps forwards into him.

"Thank you," she says into his throat.

"I've got you, Beth," Alistair murmurs. "It's alright."

"I know," Bethany whispers.

But it's not alright. Not really.

Andraste, Bethany doesn't think she can _do_ this much longer.

"I hate it when I'm right. Shite, I'm going to stab that little wanker in the face when I get the chance," Marian says, darkly. She's wiping demon-gunk off her daggers against her thigh. The bright crimson fabric streaks shadow and shimmer in the late afternoon sun. "Eurgh, Warden guts. I'm never going to eat again."

(Charming, Mari.)

"Not if I get there first," Carver says, low and furious and burning behind the teeth. There's something harder to him, harder even than the awful nothing in Marian's eyes; these people might have been his friends, Bethany realizes, his touchstones down in the dark.

Even if they hadn't been, surely, he's thinking of the people who _are_.

And they're dead, now.

"We should build a pyre," Bethany says. Her voice doesn't wobbles, and she's proud of that. "It's—we should. It's not right to leave them like this."

Alistair's grip tightens on her waist. "Beth, love, maybe we shouldn't—I don't know how much time we have—"

But all Bethany can think of is her twin, and Warden Loghain, and how these people, too, must have families somewhere. She doesn't know if she even believes in the Maker anymore, or Andraste, or her father's gods. Sometimes she thinks she's seen too much to believe in them.

And Bethany is not her sister.

She cannot step over the dead.

"Please," she says. "It won't take long."

"Bleeding heart," Marian sighs under her breath. Bethany's sister rakes her hands through her hair. "Inquisitor, you might want to go on ahead. I don't know how long our greasy-haired little friend is going to be funning, but Adamant is a day's ride. I'd say we have some time, but it's up you, my lady."

Lady Ellana looks cross at the reminder that she's _far_ less anonymous than she'd like to be, Bethany is sure. She chews over Marian's words for a long moment. Blood seeps in rivulets, in the cracks between stones.

"Griffon's Wing Keep," Lady Ellana says. "We can meet there."

"Could do," says Marian, thoughtful.

Bethany misses the rest of the conversation on account of ignoring her older sister in favour of her twin. Carver's face is still and drawn in the late afternoon light; the silver and blue of his armour seems a strange thing, stark in the blinding orange of the sun.

Cold, maybe, like a chip of ice bitten off and spit out, left to melt.

Carver looks at her. His mouth moves, but no sound comes out.

 _Thank you_.

Bethany dips her head, curls falling into her eyes. The death rites are important. They both know that, and this is not a sacrifice. Just a little thing, to remind Carver that in the end, they are on the same side. She smiles out of the corner of her mouth. Softly, like an apology.

 _You're welcome_.

—

The smoke from the funeral pyre follows them all the way to Griffon's Wing Keep.

Alistair, in a fit of pique that shows far more self-awareness than most people think he's capable of, strings Bethany's horse in a line. It allows her to drift, the babble of her family's voices a careful lighthouse in a storm. Carver and Mari and Varric and Alistair—oh, _Alistair_ —this is the only thing that Bethany's ever wanted to know. These people, these sparks few though they are—they keep her going. Lights in a storm, lights in a tower, fairylights and witchlights and candlelights, all.

It's not quite right, though.

Andraste, Bethany misses her children.

"Beth?"

"Hm?"

"C'mon, love, down you get," Alistair murmurs. "We're here. The others have already gone ahead."

"Mm-hmm," Bethany hums, and slides boneless from her mare, right into her husband's arms. Second time today that Alistair's caught her up like this, and it still never feels like enough. She ways into him, his skin a sire lure of metal and salt-scented warm and _home_ , Maker, he always smells just like _home_.

She clings to him just because she can.

"You're half-asleep, aren't you?" Alistair laughs very softly into her hair as he gathers her up and tucks in her ragged edges.

"Long day," Bethany murmurs. "Bad day."

"I'm not going to argue with that," he says. "We ought to eat something, though, you know."

"Not hungry," Bethany presses her face into his throat. It closes out the rest of the world, blots out Marian and Carver and the blood magic that still feels like it's swirling around her. For a moment they could be in Kirkwall again, the twins and Mal just in the other room, or playing in the garden with Neria, or bothering Orana for dinner just the way they used to.

She misses them so desperately it makes her teeth ache.

"We shouldn't have left them, Alistair. Or I should have—I should have stayed," Bethany says, gulping down air. "I know they're alright, but—"

"I know," Alistair says, very quietly. His hands smooth over her shoulders, down her arms. "I miss them, too."

Bethany hadn't realized that being away from them for this long was going to be so _hard_. She'd known that it was going to be difficult—how could it not be difficult, when even just Alistair gone for a fortnight was enough to put her teeth on edge—but not like this.

Andraste, no, not like this.

(This: a burning pit in the centre of her chest the colour of a dying fire, right next to her heart, that expands endlessly. This: the twins' lullaby on her tongue, a sound not _heard_ so much as _felt_. This: Alistair's palm, closing around Bethany's own in the dark.)

"I'm sick of riding, too," she says, grumbles. She's got bruises all over, and not the fun kind.

"You're better than you were," Alistair says, mildly, but Bethany can hear the laughter hidden in the corners of his mouth. Yes, she's perfectly aware that she rides like a sack of potatoes, but he doesn't need to point it out!

"If I wasn't so tired, I'd get you for that," Bethany says

"What, no biting?"

"Too tired to bite," she mumbles into his collarbone

"Well, _that's_ no fun," Alistair says, loftily, even as he carefully herds her into the Keep. She appreciates that he does all the leading, for now, because it means she doesn't have to think about where she puts her feet. Bethany stumbles against him, and he props her up without a word. "What's the point if there's no biting? Am I going to have to go without kissing you, as well? Maker forbid, without the possibility of our children walking in? Tell me it isn't so, love!"

"Oh, no, never," Bethany says, scrounging up a little smile. She's exhausted, but she's never too exhausted for Alistair's flirting. "You can always kiss me."

"What a relief," he says, and promptly takes the liberty of darting down to kiss the smile right off her.

Bethany likes being kissed. Sun-gold, a little rough with sand and the cracks in his lips, sweet pressure at her hips where his fingers bite in sharp. A little closer, and his hands everywhere, everywhere: her cheekbone, her ribs, knotting into her curls. Languid warmth curling all through her that has nothing to do with the heavy weight of the afternoon sun on her skin. A bead of sweat in the hollow of her clavicle.

Oh, yes, Bethany likes being kissed, especially when it's Alistair doing the kissing.

His mouth tracks down the column of her throat, and his voice is like gravel when he says, "Are you _sure_ you're tired?"

"You can't kiss the tired out of me, Alistair."

"I can _try_."

"Then I'll just be more tired, and I'll be _completely_ useless."

"You're never useless.

"You love me," Bethany murmurs. Kisses or not, she can hardly keep her eyes open. "Of course, you think that."

"It's the only thing that matters to me," Alistair murmurs in reply, shrugging. He takes most of her weight, her stave and her robes and her flesh and her bones and her prickly little terrors, packs them away and helps her stand straight. "But I suppose you're right. Can you walk, love, or should I carry you?"

 _You're always carrying me_ , Bethany wants to say, but she can't quite get the words out. _Even when you shouldn't_.

Instead she leans heavily on his shoulder, braids her hands into the solid leather of his jerkin. She can stand like this. "I'll be alright."

Alistair makes a little sound like disbelief in the back of his throat.

But he doesn't argue.

He walks her inside, horses left in the shanty-stables hastily built outside of the walls. Too many visitors in a forgotten place; the Keep is built of the same eldritch metal-and-stone as the ritual tower, Bethany notes, distantly. Not obsidian, though it carries the same half-blinding gleam. But then they're ducking into a shadowed cranny, and Bethany sways back and forth, blinking spots away. Her hands feel like lead; she can't muster the energy to help Alistair lay out their bedroll, can only stumble into his side.

"Get some rest," Alistair says. His eyes are very soft as he looks at her.

"Alistair, my sister—"

"I'll deal with it," he says, quiet and firm. "Go to sleep, would you?"

 _I love you_ , she thinks, hazily.

Alistair grins, and then—

Oh.

Bethany doesn't know if she sleeps.

She must, because one second she's closed her eyes, the setting sun limning the entire Keep in dream-smear scarlet and shimmer-shining copper. The next, she's shivering under the thin linen cloth Alistair had scrounged from somewhere to keep the sand off, sitting up and rubbing the Fade out of her eyes.

Dusk settles over the dunes like an old friend.

No one ever told her how night comes quickly in the desert.

The air chills rapidly, turns a cool, faded blue prickled over with stars. It's a day's ride to Adamant Fortress from Griffon Wing Keep; even if they leave at the crack of dawn, it'll be well into the night that they arrive. Better to camp down for now, take what little sleep they can.

She shudders.

(No one told her that the desert was going to be _cold_ , either. She'd expected the heat, and she can't stand it, but at least she _had_ expected it—this horrible, teeth-aching cold is something else entirely because she simply hadn't been _prepared_.)

Bethany wraps a blanket stolen from Alistair's pack around her shoulders, and goes to find her husband.

He's sitting with Carver at the fire, and Ser Cullen sits just a little away, looking pale and tragic. Mari and Varric lounge just outside of the circle of light, cats' eyes in the dark; they've been talking quietly this whole trip, just as they used to. Bethany is thrown back to another journey in what feels like another lifetime.

Her older sister's voice: _we go down there_.

Bethany shakes the echo of memory off. It's not really the time—it's _never_ really the time, if she's honest. Her older sister is only one thing.

Her husband is quite another.

Bethany plops herself down in Alistair's lap with her blanket still wrapped tightly around her shoulders, and is very content when his arms come up to curl around her like an old habit. He's listening carefully to Carver rant about either Weisshaupt or horses or darkspawn or possibly all three, and it's like he's not even entirely aware she's there.

It warms her all over, that Alistair is so used to her presence that it's simply a given that she's curling up on top of him, as far as he's concerned.

Bethany leans back into her husband's chest, and deigns to pay mind to her twin.

"—and they don't tell anyone anything, they just expect us to _obey_! Bloody shite awful pissblood _Wardens_!"

" _You've_ learned some new words," Bethany remarks, when Carver pauses to take a breath. "Andraste, Carver, don't let Mother hear you, she'll wash your mouth out with soap."

"Oh, decided to pay attention to us, have you?"

"Well, to Alistair, at any rate," Bethany says, flopping a shoulder up and down. She can feel the pull of Alistair's muscles as he grins, head ducking down to hide his amusement in her hair. He always does that, shoving his face into her curls to keep from letting anyone know he's laughing at them. "He _is_ letting me sit on him."

Carver gives her the stink-eye. "We _were_ having a conversation, you know."

"You can keep having it," Bethany says. "I'm just going to sit on Alistair while you do it."

Her twin makes a garbled sound of deep consternation. "You know he's—you're not going to pay attention to me, are you? Not now that she's here!"

"Well," says Alistair, reasonably, like someone who didn't spend the day hacking his way through demons and bandits and then very summarily kissed Bethany dizzy in the bloody aftermath, "Not to ruin your day, mate, but, uh. No. Why would I talk to you when I've got Beth on top of me?"

Carver throws up his hands in defeat, and Marian's laughter cuts through the night.

"You can't win with them, Carver," Marian says. "You might as well stop trying."

Carver makes a disgusted sound.

It ought to put Bethany off of the cuddling, but—between staying curled up in Alistair's lap, and _not_ revolting her twin, there's not a lot of choice. Alistair is furnace-heat warm, and moving away from him would mean facing the child of the night on her own. Bethany doesn't have _half_ the fortitude for that, right now, and besides, she _likes_ Alistair.

Bethany stays precisely where she is. Carver's grouchiness will keep.

She turns her face into Alistair's chest, the thudding of his heart right beneath her lips. Skin and cloth then skin again, the muscles underneath, the solid breadth of him to keep her grounded. Andraste, there isn't anyone in the world that Bethany loves the way she loves Alistair.

"They're making fun of us, love," Alistair murmurs.

"Let them," Bethany smiles. She tips her head back to brush her mouth against his jaw. He's scruffy from the long days of riding and the lack of sleep. "They're just jealous."

"I am _not_ jealous?!"

"You sound a bit jealous, mate," Alistair points out, mild. Carver makes another sound, this one more akin to letting the air escape a pig's bladder balloon, an absolute _outrage_ of a noise that shouldn't be half as funny as it is. "Just a little."

Bethany has to bury her face into his chest to muffle her laughter.

"I hate you _both_ ," Carver says, and now he's almost pouting about it. The night colours up indigo-blue and sweet with nostalgia, a far-away fairy story that Bethany's half-forgotten the words. Ser Cullen is listening to them go at it, though, she can tell; he shifts, ginger with care to keep from being caught at it, so desperate to be part of the world that he doesn't entirely know how to deal with it.

He's always been like that, hasn't he?

Bethany arranges herself more comfortably atop Alistair. The morning is still a ways off, and the ride to Adamant blooms nightmare claws and awful scraps of metal, moving in the maw of the late evening. The fire flickers, throws shadows, blackwater poison dripping Void spillage down the spine.

They might not live through tomorrow.

For now, though, they have this.

Bethany drops her head back against her husband's chest, and quietly soaks it all in.

—

.

.

.

.

.

 _tbc_.


	7. not lost but made eternal

**disclaimer** : disclaimed  
 **dedication** : to long late winter nights, clear crystalline gin, and learning to be a person again.  
 **notes** : _she won't let me down (ft. leo stannard)_ — EMBRZ.

 **title** : not lost but made eternal  
 **summary** : There is a new Commander in Haven. — templar!au part ii; Alistair/Bethany.

—

.

.

.

.

.

"Beth," Alistair murmurs. "Beth, wake up."

Bethany stirs, consciousness filtering in slowly. Alistair doesn't shake her into it: instead, he runs his hands through her curls, gently untangling knots, the familiar warmth of his skin bringing her softly into wakefulness.

"Already?" she asks, a little slurred. "Must we?"

Alistair laughs, low and rich. "Not quite yet, actually."

"So why are you waking me up?"

"Because I haven't had the chance to kiss you good morning for weeks without being interrupted," Alistair says, voice entirely pleasant. He's pushed himself up on an elbow, looking down at her and still tugging gently on her curls. "May I?"

"Only if you promise we never go this far away ever again," Bethany says. She reaches up, half-asleep even still, curls a palm against his jaw. His stubble scratches. "And you have to promise to shave. You're bristly."

Alistair _snorts_. "Of all things, you're worried about my scruff? Really, Beth? You could have anything, and _that's_ what you ask for?"

"It itches," Bethany says judiciously. "I _am_ the one being kissed."

"And you like it," Alistair says, very soft and very fond.

"I suppose," Bethany allows. "A little bit."

"Oh, only a little bit, is it? Shall I just see myself out, then?"

Bethany laughs aloud, reaches up to wind her arms around his neck and pull him down, keep him close. "Oh, don't make that face, you know you're my favourite!"

Alistair grins against the corner of her mouth, faces mashed together in the halflight. It's not quite dawn, yet, and here in the dark and the warm and the safe of the alcove that they'd crawled into together last night after the embers of the fire had gone out, the buzz of the gesture sparks beneath her skin. "Never awful to hear, though, is it?"

"No, not at all," Bethany murmurs. He's so close, oh, so _close_ , and her arms tighten around his neck, involuntary with it. Bethany doesn't ever think there's going to be a day when she doesn't _want_ Alistair. Even now, at the end of the world, the sun not yet risen in the sky, she wants him still. Perhaps she wants him especially badly because of it; Bethany rubs her nose into his cheek, squirming when he pokes her in the side.

Andraste, if she dies never belonging to anyone else the way she belongs to Alistair, she'll die happy.

But dying—

Well.

Dying is something that everyone has to do, eventually. Bethany sobers a little under the creeping of false dawn. Heather grey inches across the sky.

"Alistair," Bethany says.

"Hm?"

"You probably ought to kiss me now."

"Yes, I probably ought to," Alistair agrees. He tips her face up and examines her very closely, gaze tracking over her features, sharp as a new knife. "You know, I keep expecting you to freckle, but you don't."

"Chasind," Bethany smiles.

"Yes," Alistair says, nodding a little. His fingers trace the shell of her ear. "That."

And then he kisses her, and neither of them say much more.

—

Warden Loghain refuses to look at Bethany's husband.

Or—he _does_ look at Alistair, but it's always out of the corner of his eyes, some pained horrible twist to his expression that Bethany can't parse apart. And Alistair isn't paying attention enough to notice that he's being watched, too busy ribbing Ser Cullen by far to be aware of anything else going on around him.

(Her soft-headed idiot.)

But then Alistair catches Bethany's eye, tilts his head a little in the Warden's direction, and she realizes—no, he _does_ notice, but he's pretending not to everybody's sake.

Bethany knows the story. King Maric, lost at sea. Two years, then, that the then-Teryn Loghain had spent searching for him. King Cailan, and then the Blight, and then the Hero of Ferelden and _Ostagar_ , and all those deaths, Maker, her sister had never spoken about the death in the Korcari Wilds but it had lived in her eyes—

For Alistair there had been Lothering and Bethany herself and then—then Kirkwall.

And Maker knows, they left Ferelden before things had gotten _worse_. They'd followed Marian across a sea, because where else would they have gone? The darkspawn spread filth and rot everywhere they went, killed everything they touched. Leaving had been the only _choice_. And Bethany still remembers Gwaren, and the long days her family had spent on that awful ship; she'd been so sick that she'd not been able to keep anything down, not even water.

Alistair had held her through it.

(It makes her teeth ache that she can't hold him through this. Bethany's fingers twist into knots on the reins for want of something to do with her hands.)

Her husband must sense her anxiety, because he frowns, holds up so that Ser Cullen must forge on ahead on his own. He waits for Bethany to catch up, his mare prancing in place, kicking up dust and sand in a cloud that settles burning orange around him.

"Are you alright?" Alistair asks, voice low, when she finally makes her way to his side.

"Me?" Bethany blinks. "I'm not the one being stared at. Are _you_ alright?"

"Ah," says Alistair. "Well."

Bethany watches the skin around her husband's eyes tightens, the line of his mouth turn down. she can't reach across the space between them to smooth it away; he's too far, even though he's right there. The sparkle of healing magic would catch too much attention. A hundred things. A thousand things.

"Has he said anything to you?" Bethany asks, very softly.

"No," Alistair chuckles, but it's not a happy sound. It's a sound that feels like pain, and misery, and sharp-edged sorrow coloured up melancholy blue.

"Do you think…?" she trails off.

Alistair looks at her for a very long moment across a burning sea of shifting sand. Bethany thinks that he might topple himself in the trying, if he tries to reach for her now. She wants to catch his fingers, wants to hold on tight.

Wants to stop him from hurting, even if it's only for a little while.

"No," Alistair says again, but his eyes have gone soft. "Not really. It's not the end of the world, love."

 _Yes, it is_ , Bethany wants to say. _You're hurting and I can't stop it_.

But she doesn't.

Instead she magics a tiny puff of ice, flicks it so that it hits his throat and shivers down his spine. The frozen shape of her mouth, touched to his cheek in a wintertime kiss.

Alistair laughs, startled. He'd not expected that, she can tell; maybe her arms around the barrel of his chest, later, when it's just them alone. Maybe he'd expected nothing at all. He laughs, instead.

Bethany thinks it might be the loveliest sound she's ever heard.

—

Adamant Fortress rises above a silent, endless abyss that gives Bethany the willies, just looking at it. It's a structure out of her nightmares, grasping claws for roofs, screaming griffons at every tower, shadow-silver and purple-black of a bruise. Everything inside of her contracts with the _wrongness_ of it, the sudden urge to get away, get far, _far_ away.

Alistair, at her side, blows all the breath out of his lungs through his teeth on a long, low whistle. "That's a horror to look at, isn't it?"

"We're going in there, aren't we," says Bethany, a little faint, but it's not a question. Her voice comes high and tight at the back of her throat, vicious and bleeding internally besides, everything breath tasting of ash and rust. The eldritch spires that reach into the gaping maw of the sky remind her of Darktown, somehow; Bethany things of those winding hivemind tunnels where the Carta had run of the place, and thinks that they'd probably quite like it here, if only they could find a way to turn a profit.

Alistair glances at her out of the corner of his eye. "If you don't want to, Beth, then don't. Maker knows, I'd rather you stayed back."

 _It's safer there_ , he doesn't say, but Bethany hears it all the same. Her mouth curls sour just a little at the thought—she's not come this far to leave him on his own _now_ , and Alistair knows it. He doesn't even really mean it, either, she doesn't think; Alistair is very aware that he needs someone at his back, and Bethany is _just_ as aware that Alistair is counting on it more than he's willing to let on.

Alistair wants her here, or he'd have insisted she stay at Skyhold with their children.

(And it's not just him, either, is it? There's Marian and Carver to think about, the both of them ahead; Marian speaking quietly to Varric and the Lady Inquisitor to pass the time, and Carver nodding slowly at Warden Loghain. It's never just about Alistair, even though Bethany wishes that it were. It's never just about any single person. That's not the way the world works.)

"I suppose the Maker will have to accept that I won't be," Bethany says, gentle. She touches his arm. "Alistair—"

"I know, Beth," he says. Exhales heavy, like it costs him to do so. "I know why—"

"No," Bethany says. "You don't. I'm not leaving you, Alistair. Please don't ask me to."

"I wasn't planning to—"

"Alistair."

"Alright, fine, maybe I was," Alistair shrugs, not ashamed to be caught in this particular lie. The siege weaponry creaks and groans, a howling fury of movement behind the wide breadth of his shoulders. "But it's—no, never mind. Can you promise me something?"

"What?"

Alistair inhales sharply. "Promise me you won't make me watch you die, Bethany Hawke. I'll not survive it."

Oh, _Alistair_.

Bethany has to stand up on her tiptoes with her hand wound into his shirt for balance to press her mouth against his ear. It's not quite a kiss, even though anyone watching will think that's precisely what it is. What it looks like, even. It's terrifying, how much he means to her and how little he seems to know it.

"Only if you promise not to make _me_ watch _you_ die, Alistair Theirin," she whispers. "I'll not survive that, either."

He chokes on a laugh that isn't really a laugh, shuddering, and puts his arms around her. "So, if we both decide to not die, then, that'll just be our best bet. Agreed?"

Bethany nods into his chest.

Because while maybe he has no idea what he means to her, maybe she doesn't understand what she means to him, either. Maybe, in truth, she doesn't understand what _he_ means to _her_. Maybe neither of them have any idea what's really going on; maybe they're still in Kirkwall, and this is all just a very long, very awful dream.

But she remembers that horrible, perfectly clear day, when he'd been blood-bound and it had been her sister's fault. The Wounded Coast had been golden and calling the waves and the birds, and she remembers the way she'd not been able to breathe for fear for him, much less _think_.

She'd nearly lost him, then, and even now, she doesn't—Maker—doesn't know what she might have done had he not been alright.

There is a darkness inside of Bethany's chest. Not the magic; it's something else, an awful possessive thing that's twisted its nasty claws around her heart and held on tight.

Maker knows, there's nothing Bethany wouldn't do, for Alistair.

"I love you," she whispers.

"I know," Alistair murmurs. "I love you, too."

And it's enough, or it'll have to be, because just then, a cheer rises rumbling from the ranks. The night is clear and cool, a heavy, dusty blue with the last dregs of twilight. Bethany looks up from the tight curl of Alistair's arms, watching with wide eyes at the first _snap_ of the trebuchet, the wild careening fly of the ballistae.

Adamant Fortress was built before the advent of modern siege warfare.

And then Inquisition does not hesitate.

Bethany and Alistair watch for a while, as the fortress takes a pummelling. There is something dispassionate about it; an ended history, perhaps. Even from here, Bethany can pick out the Wardens on the walls in blue and silver, ducking for cover.

This is not a siege they will outlast, she thinks, a little sad.

Alistair seems to understand, and pulls her closer.

"Lovebirds, if you two have decided to finish rubbing your noses together, we have a job to do!"

Bethany's older sister smiles a Fear demon's smile, all sharp edges and brittle, brutal delight. The Inquisition's forces are already moving towards the fortress but Marian is here, suddenly, _awfully_ , as present as she always manages to be when she's decided the world needs a good hard _shove_.

"Are you coming? Our little Knight-Captain's about ready to charge off and challenge the Wardens to an honour duel! Bless his little heart," Marian laughs. "We don't want to disappoint him, do we?"

"Mari—"

"I'm going to try to keep people from falling down dead, Bethy, and Carver's coming with me," the Champion of Kirkwall says, softly for all there is only an efficient murder to the words. She shrugs over the screams of the already-dying far in the distance, a funny little smile on her lips. "Try not to get killed, would you? Mother would be very upset."

Mother is going to be very upset regardless, Bethany thinks.

The sound of wood moaning, groaning, _splintering_ apart rents the air.

The barred door to the fortress breaks.

"That's my cue," Marian smiles. "Oh, and templar?"

"Yes?" says Alistair, because he really is a good sport about these things.

"You know the drill, darling. Same as always! I'd rather not have to cut out your tongue," the Champion of Kirkwall says, smiling brilliantly for a moment before she makes a face. "Yeurgh, _tongues_."

Alistair only sighs. "Thanks for the notice, Hawke. I'll try to keep it in mind."

Bethany doesn't know how her sister hears it over the shaking rumble of a thousand feet all charging forwards, but she must, because her grin splits wider, her teeth a brilliant white flash through the dark before she disappears.

(The deal is this, as Bethany understands it: if Alistair takes her into something, and she doesn't come out of alive but he does, Marian gets to cut out his tongue. It's less of a deal and more of an endlessly implied threat, but—Bethany doesn't think there's a universe where it could happen. Alistair has a habit of always putting himself between her and the pointy bits of rest of the world. It's not healthy, but it is what it is.)

The world hangs in stasis for a very long, unbroken moment. Bethany near swallows her trepidation.

And then Alistair twists, bends, kisses her savage like a violence.

Time starts to move again, and thus, so do they. Maker, but her older sister and Lady Lavellan are _far_ more alike than anyone gives them credit for, Bethany thinks, wearily.

Ser Cullen is already bellowing orders to the troops, when Bethany and Alistair reach the lower bailey. Her magic bubbles in her chest, prickling at her fingertips; she bats falling rubble out of the air as a matter of course.

There's blood splattered on Ser Cullen's face.

"You look gorgeous," says Alistair, lightly. "Did you have another fight with the cat? Woke up on the wrong side of the bed? Didn't put sugar in your tea?"

"Shut up," Ser Cullen enunciates. There is a little death in his face, and Bethany finds herself wondering where Lady Evelyn has got to. "The Inquisitor's gone ahead. We need to get up to the battlements."

Bethany reaches up to slap a hand over Alistair's mouth to stem the likely-unhelpful retort that she can already hear coming. _You'd be worse if I'd run off on my own_ , she telegraphs in her husband's general direction with her eyebrows, which is absolutely true and Alistair knows it. He grins through the gaps in her fingers, clogged already with war-dust.

"Where do you need us most?" Bethany asks, instead.

Ser Cullen stares at them for a moment. His shoulder is bloodied where a demon took claws to his side, the smoking remains of a rage demon charred along his smudged edges. The blood is thick, and clogs her nose.

Bethany would heal the wound, but she has the sense that Ser Cullen isn't even aware he's injured. He's attempting desperately to remain calm despite the rain of ancient stone on their heads and the growing fires and the demon-screech in the air, and Bethany remembers that he has, nobly and _stupidly_ , gone off the lyrium.

Andraste, Ser Cullen's going to get himself killed.

Alistair makes the decision for them both.

"Right," he says, "We'll head up there, clean out what we can on the way. Beth, love, will you—?"

Bethany flexes her fingers, sparkling white. Healing always comes easier when she's afraid, despite being all the more draining for it and oh, Maker, she is afraid. It sticks in her throat like broken glass. The healing washes over Ser Cullen and Alistair both, long enough to knit the skin back together and put away the hurts.

"Excellent," Alistair says. He glares at Ser Cullen. "You, whatever you do, don't get murdered. I don't want to have to be sorry about it."

"I—er—" Ser Cullen starts.

But Alistair is already taken off, half-dragging Bethany at his side, determined to throw himself at the world with his shield up. The air shivers with the aftershocks of the explosion. A demon darts out of the shadows of the stair screeching, and Alistair runs it through before Bethany even has to raise a hand.

 _Oh, my love_ , Bethany thinks.

And they throw themselves into the fray.

Bethany will not remember how they survive Adamant Fortress.

She will remember the howling and the burnt charred remains of Warden vestments, Inquisition soldiers only a scant few years older than her daughters dying around a pained gurgle with blood in the teeth. She will remember the cold blue of the air pressing into her skin, neon and garbage, nothing to save us. She will remember the bright slick shine of Alistair's sword gleaming in the burning of a fire. She will remember the Maker's Fist and the Abyss and the scrabble of stone when she hooks her golden magic into a wall and _yanks_ it down to bury a murder of demons alive. She will remember the unnatural _crick-crack_ of their bones, and she will remember gritting her teeth as they die.

She will remember breaking out of the muck and the mire of the fight onto the battlements, robes spattered up to the knee in blood.

She will remember retching over the wall, Alistair's hands steady and cool in her hair.

"I hate killing," Bethany rasps, her throat sore and harsh with bile. "I hate it."

"I know," Alistair murmurs. There's a long gouge bleeding freely down the side of his face, but he cups her cheeks like it doesn't bother him at all. Even here, at the end of the world, he is so kind that it aches. "Beth, love, focus. We're almost there."

Bethany forces herself into standing on her own, wiping away dirt and stomach-sick from across her mouth with the back of her hand. Her stave is solid beneath her palms, and there is nothing in her face when she brings herself back.

"I'm fine," she says, because she _is_ fine.

Gods, Maker, Andraste—she can be sick all she wants later. Bethany has staggered through worse than this, though smoke and burning and battle scent the air like a morgue. Demons are nothing compared to Kirkwall's templars.

Alistair grins at her. "Maker's balls, I never know what to do when you give me that look."

(A held breath.)

Bethany reaches up, palm glowing, magic churning in her chest. It's always like the first time, and she is always thrown back to Lothering, and her mother's little house, and that dying little boy and his steadfast elven mother. Alistair had been there, and has been there, and will be there regardless.

She pours the healing all over him.

Alistair sags into her, startled relief flooding his features. They only have a minute before more demons make their way up the stairs, Bethany is sure. Only one minute, but only one minute is enough.

"Better?" she asks.

"Andraste pyre, I always forget how good that feels," Alistair chuckles, a little breathless. "I think we work well together."

"Don't let it go to your head," Bethany murmurs, though her mouth pulls into a fond little smile. "It's not finished yet."

"It's never finished," he agrees, very quietly. He takes a precious second to touch her cheek, mindful of his gauntlets.

Bethany allows herself to lean into it. Closes her eyes. Cool metal against her skin, the smoke and sunder of blood in her nose, Alistair's solid warmth to press in. For a moment, they could be anywhere.

A Pride demon _shrieks_.

"Shite," Alistair says, with feeling.

But they're not anywhere, are they. Bethany and Alistair don't even look at each other, only turn as one to head back into the fray. The cobbled stones rush by beneath their feet. Wind on her face, the acrid burning of hot metal red at the back of her throat. Bethany swings her stave up and _slams_ it into a charging shade's gut. She knocks the wind out of it, and Alistair is there behind her to relieve it of its head.

Let it be said: they _do_ make a fair team.

They are quick, vicious death. The unholy _shrieking_ gets louder the closer they get to its source. Bethany and Alistair skin around a corner, and—

There's Marian, up in the air on top a ten-foot Pride demon, with her daggers buried with great prejudice in its skull. There is profane, violent glee on her face, laughter frozen in the air. Marian holds on by her fingernails.

The demon goes down like a tower. The entire fortress trembles with its fall.

"How does she do that and not die?" Alistair asks under his breath, in the split-second of stunned calm following the monster's collapse. "I've always wondered."

"I have no idea," Bethany says, faintly.

The Champion of Kirkwall yanks her daggers out of the dead demon's head with a truly disgusting _squelch_ and a grimace. Her bad knee cracks sickly as she jumps down. "Maker, that was unpleasant. Varric? Inquisitor? Are we alive? Carver?"

Bethany can hear her twin swearing loudly from beneath a pair of recently-murdered shades.

"Every time," Carver growls, louder and louder with every word, "Every _fucking_ time—sodding _shite_ , Mar, help a man out, would you?!"

"No," Marian calls back, cheerfully. "Bethy's here! And her brought her templar, how lovely. Hurry up and come say hello!"

Carver makes an aggrieved noise and doesn't bother to answer this particular spout-off of their elder sister's. Bethany thinks that her siblings are never going to change. Even in the middle of fighting a horde of demons, Carver and Marian will manage to finds ways to aggravate one another.

There is something intensely reassuring in this truth.

It's not only Marian and Carver that struggle their way out, however. Bethany spies the Inquisitor and her apostate, and Seeker Pentaghast still hacking away at a very stubborn terror.

And there's Varric, too.

There is a smear of ash on Varric's cheek and old shadowed sorrow in his eyes. Bethany wants to reach over to wipe it away; he's her old friend, too, and it is a tragedy to see him like this. He keeps Bianca held low, finger on the trigger, but pointed down for now.

"Hey, Hawke," Varric says, lifting an eyebrow wearily. "Couldn't you have pulled that little trick with the eyeballs earlier?"

Bethany's older sister makes a kissy face that is extraordinarily unattractive. "Where would be the fun in that? And who'd have believed it if I did?"

"No one's gonna believe this shit anyway," Varric sighs. "Nice face, Hawke."

"Oh, lover, you flatter me—!" says Marian, and when Lady Lavellan finally extricates herself from the ashes of a gigantic rage demon, she finds the Champion of Kirkwall draped all over Varric Tethras crowing _oh the cleverness of me_ , and the rest of the Champion's family—and, incidentally, one of her own Commanders—standing about, all looking rather bemused.

Bethany can practically hear the unasked _does this happen often_?

(It does happen often. Far, far too often, as far as Bethany is concerned. And this, right now, is especially not the time: there are still demons about, and thralled Wardens to deal with, and even though it certainly _feels_ as though time has taken a step back from reality to give them a moment to breathe, it is probably not the truth.)

"Thank you, Hawke," Lady Lavellan says. Her eyes are colourless in the grisly light from the fires below, shivering inside of the blaze. She takes a slow breath, looks at Varric. "We need to go."

"Shit, yeah, we do," Varric says, rubbing a hand across his face. "Hawke, you coming?"

"If our dear Inquisitor wants me to," Marian grins ghastly out of the corner of her mouth. "Wherever I'm most useful, I'm sure."

Lady Lavellan hesitates. She's got Carver and Seeker Cassandra and her apostate and Warden Loghain already, but Bethany is watching her do the mental calculations and the lady is coming up short. The numbers don't work. Six against every demon in the Fade? No, never; more help never goes amiss, and the tremble of mana depletion is already shaking through Lady Lavellan's shoulders. She keeps glancing backwards towards the baileys where the Inquisition troops are coming up.

They're Lady Lavellan's soldiers, here for her alone, and they're dying, too.

And just looking at her, Bethany thinks—

"Keep the demons off my men," Lady Lavellan manages at last, though it looks like it pains her to do it. If Bethany can see the Inquisitor's exhaustion, then Marian can see it, too; Bethany's older sister has always been more clear-eyed than most, especially about an internal struggle.

A slow, satisfied smile blooms across Marian;s face, made terrible with shadows and low-eyed grace.

If Bethany didn't know better, she'd say that her older sister was _impressed_.

Because that look—it's as though the Inquisitor has exceeded the Champion's expectations, and raised her estimation of the woman and her organization, entire. That's always what Marian's been like: she picks her people and she clings to them, but she'd never wanted to be a saviour, much as she had been. It takes Bethany's sister a while to warm up to people, and an even longer time to be impressed. It's no small thing.

"Yes," Marian Hawke says, in that peculiar tone of voice that had always had people following after her, helpless in the face of her regard. "I suppose I can do that."

The Inquisitor's shoulders slump with a relief so visceral it has a taste.

"I appreciate it, Hawke," Lady Lavellan says. She allows herself one great breath of rest.

"I _am_ at your service, Inquisitor," Marian says, bowing with a flourish. As she rights herself, something flickers across her face: an old memory, Bethany thinks, or maybe an afterthought. Marian whirls like a dancer. "Oh, I nearly forgot."

Bethany and Alistair look at one another.

Forgot?

Forgot _what_?

"Seeker," Marian calls across the battlements. Seeker Pentaghast raises her chin; even from here, through the darkness of the settling night, the bright flush on her cheeks is visible. Bethany remembers that Varric had once accused the Seeker of having a _crush_ on her sister, and she'd thought it nonsense at the time.

Andraste, Bethany may have to eat her words, because that _does_ look like a crush, doesn't it.

"Yes?"

"Look after my dwarf, would you? He has a habit of following me into things he shouldn't."

"That's not funny, Hawke," Varric says darkly, under his breath.

"It's a little funny," says Marian affectionately. She doesn't wait for the Seeker's reply—which, Bethany thinks, should surprise absolutely no one—before she's swooped down to kiss Varric on the cheek and then swung herself down the stairs, back towards the baileys and the curtain walls and the postern and the _demons_ therein. She's a flash of Kirkwall violence and wild, frantic glee. And Maker, it's hard to watch her go because with Bethany's sister's luck, she'll accidentally fall into the Fade and likely die of it!

Marian's gone before Bethany can say as much, though, which is just like her.

"She's going to get herself killed," Alistair observes, neutral about it.

"Oh, probably," Bethany sighs, and leans against his shoulder. "Mother's going to be so disappointed, but—well, Marian is good at keeping people alive."

The Inquisitor, listening to them talk quietly to one another, spins her stave in her hands. The smoke and the burning light up the night, throw the halla-horn vallaslin inked over her skin into high relief. _You would love Merrill_ , Bethany thinks, and for a stab of a moment misses her closest friend so much that her teeth ache. _I wish she were here_.

"And you, Commander?" Lady Lavellan asks. "What will you do?"

Alistair looks at Bethany. He knows—because Andraste, he always, always _knows_ —that Bethany wants to go after her sister. Carver, in his thick armour and his Warden blues and silvers, he'll be alright; he belongs here, somehow, the settled calm of knowing his own worth in the slight tilt to his chin. Losing Carver had hurt more than anything else Bethany had ever felt, but for her twin—

For her twin, it was what he needed.

Carver's _better_ , here.

She wants to go after Marian, but that's a selfish thing, and now is not the time to be selfish.

Bethany looks up at her husband, and she shrugs. _Whatever you want_ , the shrug says. _Whatever you think is best_. She'll be behind him regardless, even if it means she has to rip someone apart to do it. Bethany doesn't live for carnage the way her sister does, but she does live for her husband.

Alistair's eyes warm.

"We'll stay here," he says, for the both of them. "Keep anything from following you."

The Inquisitor manages to work up a smile, and Bethany manages a mirror for it. She doesn't look at Carver; it's always easier not to look at Carver. He'll clap Alistair on the shoulder, and maybe that'll be enough.

The Inquisitor turns on her heel, mouth tightening to a thin white line as she goes. Seeker Pentaghast and Lady Lavellan's apostate move past Bethany, swift and sure. Only Varric lingers.

But, of course, Varric lingers.

He's _Varric_.

"You gonna be okay, Sunshine?" he asks, quietly.

"We'll be fine." Bethany says, because they _will_ be fine. Not blood mages and not demons; not darkspawn, not Orlesians, and _certainly_ not Wardens. Not even an ancient darkspawn magister. Not fire, not sand, not wind, not ice.

They've survived it before.

They'll survive it again.

Varric looks between Alistair and Bethany for a second longer than a standard blink and then forwards, to where Seeker Pentaghast has craned her neck around to stare right back at them. She'd sputtered, earlier, when Bethany's sister had said _look after my dwarf, would you_ , but now—

Bethany doesn't think it was really something that Marian even needed to say.

Seeker Pentaghast looks after Varric without even realizing she's doing it, and without _Varric_ realizing she's doing it either, to boot. It takes a severe lack of self-awareness on both their parts, which shouldn't be funny but is, sort of. Bethany hides her face in Alistair's shoulder to keep Varric from seeing the smile.

But Varric must see it anyway. He rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, Sunshine," he says. "Whatever you say. Don't get killed, okay? Hawke won't ever let anyone hear the end of it."

Which is true, actually.

Bethany watches as Varric ambles back to the Inquisitor, glancing over his shoulder every second step to make sure that she and Alistair haven't yet disappeared beneath a pile of bodies or some such thing. He does it until the Inquisitor leads him away; he might even do it afterwards, but by then, they're already out of sight.

Alistair looks down at Bethany.

He grins.

And then the demons come.

Bethan'y magic hangs in the air around her shoulders, a golden drop of sunlight to brighten up the night. Barrier in one hand, vicious Force magic death in the other; she allows Alistair to plant himself between her and the swarm of shades aiming to make their way up the stairs. The Inquisition soldiers clambering up the rampart-ladders scatter themselves around Alistair, go where he bids when he bids them to do so, the bellow of fifty-odd voices and raised swords clanging so loud that it rattles through Bethany's teeth.

Fire, acide, shield angled down. Bethany can feel the clench of Alistair's teeth when he hacks through a shade got too close, broken through the line of soldiers and ranging drunkenly towards the mages standing at Bethany's back. It's fitting they're here; they helped close the Breach, and now they defend the keeping of it closed.

She rains fire down the stairs, and a weary cheer goes up over the rotten smell of burning demon flesh.

It is a long, awful fight.

She doesn't think it's ever going to end; there are so many demons, and they come, and they come, and they _come_. The shake in her magic at her core is a painful little flicker; Andraste, she needs to stop, she doesn't have a lot _left_ —

Dragonscream shakes the very foundations of Adamant Fortress.

Bethany's heart drops to her toes.

"Shite," Alistair breathes. His gaze finds her across the leagues of space between them. His voice is so loud in the sudden, echoing silence. "Beth. _Go_."

Bethany reaches out, and grabs his hand.

And then they're running, sweat and blood thick in the nostrils, the burn of muscles, the jarring _wrongness_ of an archdemon in the sky. The dragon _screams_ again, scrabbling at the walls, red-lyrium dragonfire turning stone to ash.

"I hate dragons, I hate dragons, I hate dragons—!" Alistair mutters furiously into Bethany's hair, ducked down behind a half-toppled griffon statue. _All good stories have griffons in them_ , she hears, Liana's voice ringing in her ears.

"After, after, we have to go—" Bethany finds herself saying, tugging sharply on his armour to get him up and moving again. The arch-high walkways roll, ancient stone moaning as it begins to come apart. Bethany's knees wobble, staggering to the side and clinging to her stave for support.

She raises her head.

Bethany's older sister is chasing after the Inquisitor and a woman with shorn gristled hair in Warden blues, far in the distance, after a flash of Tevene shite. Magic crackles; Bethany doesn't need to hear it to know it, vicious and violent and _snap-crackle-pop_!

A whole stream of people surging towards the shattered fabrican, Bethany's sister and Warden Loghain and Carver, Andraste, _Carver_ , what is he _doing_ —

Bethany will never really understand how what happens next happens next. There's the Inquisitor and her sister and that horrible Tevinter, and the fabrican is _collapsing_ , and that awful dragon is still _screaming_ , and then—

The Breach had felt like someone had taken Bethany's lungs out of her chest and crushed her still-beating heart in the hollow where they'd lived. It had felt like all of her blood had left her body at once, nothing left but a cold dark void with nothing alive. It had felt like dying, or suffocating, or like—like the foundries, pickled on pollutants and anoxia, choking on her own tongue as she tried to draw in air.

Asphyxiation, that's the word.

What happens next is not like that at all.

It feels like something inside of Bethany's head _tears_. It only lasts for a second, long enough for the sky to flare sick Fade-green, a _snap_ open-close that punches the breath of Bethany's lungs.

Pain blooms bright and hot and _throbbing_ in the center of her skull.

Bethany staggers. Alistair manages to catch her before she hits the ground.

"Beth—Beth, love, look at me, are you alright?"

"They fell in," Bethany gasps, clinging to him. She doesn't know how she knows, but she knows. She knows. She clutches at him so hard her knuckles turn white, and she wants to die because dying would be kinder. "Oh, Andraste, Alistair, they fell _in_!"

—

They rush down to the courtyard, a few minutes later when Bethany finally has her feet back under her. If Alistair has to carry her stave, neither of them mention it, fingers twined and clinging so tight that it aches.

Bethany doesn't think that she's ever going to want to let go.

Her head i still tender, the hot throbbing pain of the veil tear still fresh, acrid as loon on her tongue. Time feels—stretched, somehow, pulled taut as a band made of rubber, ready to snap in on itself at any moment. This is most apparent in the demons: eldritch monsters all turned as one towards the edge of the fortress, unmoving, long twisted faces stretched in silent screaming.

The Inquisition soldiers and the un-thralled Wardens, delighted at this turn of events, cut them down with unmitigated glee.

Beneath blade and burning, the demons come apart.

There are deep dark circles beneath Ser Cullen's eyes. He's tallying, Bethany can tell; _this many_ lost, _this many_ dead, _this many_ irreparably wounded. It would be a Commander's tally, save for one exception: this is Ser Cullen, and Ser Cullen takes everything personally. He will carry every death with him, held clenched between his teeth, weighed against his soul until the day he goes to his pyre.

Bethany wonders, sometimes, if he's yet forgiven himself for the Gallows.

Somehow, she doesn't think so.

Alistair slides an arm around Bethany's shoulders. It's an unconscious thing, as _he_ is doing a proper Commander's tally, and he always gets a little bit physical when he needs to calm himself down. His fingers bite into her waist, the metal of his gauntlets bloodied and cold, and it hurts but it's not really a bad hurt.

The Inquisitor has fallen into the Fade. Before her, they'd been a scattered thing; Bethany remembers how difficult it was for Alistair, having no one to direct where they'd go next. Neither Seeker Pentaghast nor Sister Leliana had wanted it; Seeker Pentaghast prefers to work in small teams, and Sister Leliana prefers her shadows. That had left Ser Cullen and Alistair, and at that point, they'd not even been able to _talk_ to one another without shouting.

Lady Lavellan had been the best thing that could have happened to the Inquisition.

And she's _gone_.

Maker only knows what's going to happen, now.

Bethany breathes in.

And the Veil _tears_ again.

A howl of garbled words: _dirth ma, harellan_ — _you found the red lyrium, you brought hawke here_ — _i mistook you for your father_ — _i'll know where you are_ — _at_ your _age_ — _nothing like a grey warden_ — _we're so very alike_ — _ride his body myself_ — _that all your faith has been for naught_ ; ear-splitting agony lances through Bethany's skull, and breathing feels like screaming. Her knees buckle.

For Andraste's sake, it's a good thing Alistair is as handsy as he is. Bethany would have hit the ground twice today already from the pain alone, and it's only his arms around her that keep her upright. Her knuckles are white, wound into the fabric of his tabard.

"Are you going to throw up?" Alistair asks, into her ear. "If you must, do you mind not throwing up on me?"

"Don't joke, I might," Bethany says, faint. If green were an emotion, she'd be feeling it.

"I know, love, that's why I'm saying it—"

In true form, Bethany's sister falls out of the Fade.

The rend in the air is a shard of prismatic yellow-green; through it, as a warped mirror, Bethany can see strange shadows moving in the distance, fish below a thick sheet of ice. Eyes, too many eyes, desiccated beetles and old dried blood, the crackling electric flare of red lyrium before it moves on. An island floating, the giant carved face of a man with no pupils, awful spirals of twisted bones. A woman with dragon wings, there for a half-second and then gone, washed away in the bleary flash of sunlight off of water, Lake Calenhad glittering through the Breach.

The Fade reaches out to draw Bethany in.

She doesn't move.

Because there's Marian, falling out of the crack in the world, swearing up a blue streak with fresh blood and demon ichor smeared across her face. "Spiders, why does it _always_ have to be spiders, I hate spiders, does anyone _not_ hate spiders, what with all the sodding _clicking_ and _chittering_ and the way they try to eat your bloody face off, _sod_ —"

And just as quickly as Marian springs up from the ground, the other who'd fallen _in_ fall right back _out_ : Varric, the Inquisitor's apostate, the Inquisitor herself, Seeker Pentaghast.

Carver.

Oh, sweet Andraste, _Carver_.

Bethany isn't entirely aware of herself, already reaching for her twin. All her of her attention is on him, on her older sister, and she hardly notices the way the Inquisitor grits her teeth and _turns_ , her palm crackling terrible, sick Fade-green. The rift in the air chatters indignance, a long low moan of sound that turns to a tight trembling _whine_ as Lady Lavellan sews reality closed with will alone.

The Inquisitor makes a fist, yanks the magic back towards herself, and—

 _Snap_ , the rift is closed.

For a moment, the silence hangs unbroken.

"Ow," says the Inquisitor, and very nearly falls over.

Bethany lets out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Carver isn't dead. Varric isn't dead. Alistair isn't dead. Even _Marian_ isn't dead; even Bethany's horrible, ridiculous, mad older sister. It pounds through her: _a-live, a-live, a-live_.

Oh, Maker. No one that Bethany cares about isn't breathing.

Reliefs wells up in her chest, a wellspring in a dry parched land. She'd not allowed herself to hope—had not allowed herself to even think about the possibility, when they'd all ridden out. There'd been no thinking of the future, because she'd known from the beginning that she might have lost them one and all.

But, no. They're here.

They're _alive_.

Bethany turns into Alistair, buries her face in his chest. His arms come up around her, locking her soul inside of her skin, his mouth to her hair. _What would I do if they'd died_? Bethany thinks. _What would I do if_ you _had died_?

 _Oh, Maker, thank you for not making me watch them die_.

"Alright?" Alistair asks, because he knows Bethany better than anyone else ever has, and he always knows just what to say to make things right.

"I will be," Bethany says, a little thick.

Because it's the truth.

She will be.

—

"It should have been me," Carver says, late that night after the rows have all died down. Bethany sits at his side with her knees up to her chest; she feels all over twelve years old again, stuck between Carver and Marian arguing over the remnants of evemeal.

But the little things bring her back: Alistair has arranged himself around her, and the desert air bites cold against her cheeks, and there's no more laughter in her older sister's eyes.

And Carver is Warden-Commander of Orlais.

Bethany's twin stares at his hands in the firelight, and says, again, "It should have been me."

The Fade seems to cling to him even now, presses close the way that Bethany imagines hungry spirits to do. The Veil was thin before, here, near a transparent silk shift, but now it's nearly gone entire. The Nightmare—and oh, it _is_ a Nightmare—might have been banished, but its hooked barbed claws remain buried deep into her twin's psyche.

Carver always did take things too close to his heart.

"I'm glad it wasn't," Bethany says, softly. The stars overhead seem to hear her, twinkling more brightly for a moment, a spill of crystal diamonds across the velvet darkness of the night sky.

"But it should have been," Carver says. Bitter isn't the right word for how he sounds; there's too much bewilderment, for bitterness. It lacks bite. "And it's worse, because I can't even blame Mar for it. I can't even blame _anyone_."

"Why would you want to?"

Carver glances at her out of the corner of his eye. Bethany isn't sure what he finds in the regard, but it must be _something_ , because the horrible sharp slant to his mouth relents. "I hated him, you know."

"Who?" Bethany asks, even though she knows precisely who.

"Loghain," says Carver. Alistair goes tense beneath her at the name. Bethany thinks of the way that Warden Loghain had stared, and flinched, and stared again; she weaves her fingers through Alistair's, tucks herself in a little closer. "I hated him, and now I can't, because the sodding old bastard saved my life!"

 _He saved my life and died for it_ , Bethany hears.

And this fact, more than any other, would rankle. For Carver, who's spent so much of his life working past the long-reaching deaths at Ostagar—yes, it would gnaw at his bones. That's why they'd left Lothering in the first place, wasn't it? Death, dying, _darkspawn_.

Bethany tries not to wonder what the world would look like, had King Cailan lived. Alistair's mouth brushes her shoulder, and she knows he's thinking the exact same thing.

It doesn't do any good to dwell, Bethany tells herself firmly. Especially not on things like that.

"What are you going to do, now?" Bethany asks, quietly.

Carver snorts. "I s'pose I'll have to be Warden-Commander, won't I? Buggering rat bastard shite, Sereda's going to be a right bloody terror. I wouldn't be _her_ replacement, so she had to let Nathaniel run things, but I'll do it for Orlais? When she had to run off to do things on the other side of the world and leave her sodding Keep in Sigrun's filthy hands? _Don't I have any sense_? Oh, Maker, she's going to murder me."

Bethany knows who absolutely none of the people her twin just mentioned _are_.

Thankfully, neither does Alistair, and he is also not pretentious enough to even pretend to do so.

"Who, mate?" Alistair asks. "Inquiring minds want to know. It's not often you hear a phrase like 'buggering rat bastard shite'. Good one, but please don't teach it to my daughters."

Carver colours faintly, high in his cheeks. "Oh, uh. Warden-Commander Sereda Aeducan. And, uh, Warden-Constable Sigrun. And Senior Warden Nathaniel Howe. Did I miss anyone?"

"The Hero of Ferelden," Bethany says, flatly. "You're talking about _the Hero of Ferelden_."

Carver shrugs. "Yes?"

"Carver."

"What?" Carver shrugs again. "She stands short as your elbow, and I haven't beaten her in a spar yet. She's just like that, Sereda; we don't stand much on ceremony, at the Keep. There's no point."

 _We_. He says it so easily, Bethany thinks. Carver has a whole life with the Wardens that she'll never really be able to understand.

While she built herself a family with Alistair in Kirkwall, her twin made do, down in the dark. It never felt like it was for the better, but every time she's seen Carver since, he's seemed—settled. More comfortable in his own skin. And there are no shadows in the dark, not even one so long as Marian's.

Bethany understands, in this moment, that the Wardens make her brother _happy_. Happier than perhaps he's even been; they give him purpose, and they give him the space he needs to be his own person. She didn't think she was ever really going to forgive Marian for leaving Carver in the Deep Roads all those years ago, but—

But it's easy to put it down, when Carver looks so _calm_.

Maker knows, Bethany's twin is always so much better when he doesn't feel like he's constantly being compared to their elder sister.

Bethany sinks back against Alistair, the wash of the voices of the two most important men in her life lulling her into a slow, sleepy doze. They're both here, perfectly safe and within arm's reach, and it's the most content she's been in what feels like years.

She slides lower down the slope towards the yaning maw of the Fade. If and when Alistair wants to move, he'll wake her up; Bethany thinks that right now, her husband would prefer to talk to her brother.

As much as they bite at one another, Alistair and Carver are friends, too.

Bethany buries her face in the wide slab of Alistair's arm. Closes her eyes.

A long time later—or perhaps no time at all—speech filters in. Bethany stirs, settles, doesn't wake all the way. It's only Carver.

"—wanted me to tell you that he was sorry. For Cailan. And that you have your mother's nose, whatever that means."

Alistair stops breathing.

(It's what pulls Bethany from the quiet of deep rest: even when she's sleeping on top of him, Alistair isn't prone to stillness. He's always moving, her husband; he'd be moving is he was sitting prone in a burning room, mumbling _this is fine_. But now he's still, until he breathes slow and even, runs his fingers through her curls to calm himself down. It would be a nervous thing, except that Alistair wouldn't know nerves if they hit him in the face. He does it because he likes it when she sleeps, and there's never a night where she's not slept easier with his hands in her hair.)

It takes long, horrible minutes before Alistair gathers himself enough to find a reply. Bethany comes into wakefulness in the interim, ear pressed to his chest, listening to the too-fast, shallow pound of his heart.

"Is that it?" Alistair asks, all snapped-off and brittle. "Bit late for that, I think."

"Do you really have your mother's nose?"

"I don't know. I never knew her."

Bethany turns her face into Alistair's chest, a carefully slow and sleepy slide. Maybe no one will ever know it for what it is except for her husband, who can feel the change as her pulse quickens.

She presses her mouth in a kiss, right over his heart.

Alistair's fingers tangle in her curls. A little too tight, a little too much like he's clinging to the only thing he has that makes sense anymore. A little too much like he _needs_. The firelight through Bethany's closed eyelids is orange as a droughted land; sand, wind fire.

It's difficult, Bethany thinks, when the dead refuse to stay dead. Alistair can't lay it all to rest when it keeps coming back to haunt him.

Bethany lets him hold on.

Better too tight than not at all.

—

The Inquisition makes it to the village that's sprung up at the base of Skyhold's mountain. It's been a long journey home; too long, really. Bethany knows that the Inquisition needs to time to travel, but—

Oh, Andraste. Bethany gets her arms around her children, and she doesn't think she's ever going to let them go ever again.

Her _babies_.

"Excuse me! Some welcome _that_ was. What am I, chapped darkspawn liver?!"

"Chopped darkspawn liver probably talks less, sorry to burst your bubble, Death Wish," Varric says, wisely. "They're kids. Sunshine's their mom. No contest."

"We do like you, Father," Lia says, judiciously. She does not back this up with any sort of meaningful action, however, preferring instead to stay plastered to Bethany's side, skinny arms wrapped tight around her mother's waist.

"But you like your mother better," Alistair says, dryly. "I see how it is. S'pose I can't really blame you, though, can I? I'd pick her over me, too."

Carina detaches herself from Bethany's other hip to go launch herself at her father, high-impact clinging around his neck. Liana is very much her father's daughter, but Carina is his favourite, and he, hers.

Bethany's daughter whispers something in Alistair's ear that has him brightening entire. He picks Carina up—though, Maker, she and Lia are both beginning to get too big for it; she mourns, because it seems as though they've grown half a foot since Bethany's been away, and Andraste, she can't look at them enough, she'll never be able to look at them enough—and swings her up into his arms.

Now they've _both_ got an armful of children. Bethany smiles helplessly at Alistair, Mal's dark head mashed beneath her chin and Lia clinging so tight to her middle. Their children.

 _Never again_ , Bethany thinks. _We cannot leave them alone this long ever again_.

From the way Alistair is holding Carina, somewhere between reverent and overcome, Bethany gets the sense that he likely agrees with that notion just fine.

Bethany bends to kiss the top of Liana's golden head. She loves them so much she'd like to die of it, the tight hot clutch of desperation twisting up her throat.

"I missed you, darling," she whispers around a hot wash of tears. Salt and rust, leashed behind her eyes. "Were you good for the Grand Enchanter?"

Lia is deeply insulted by this insinuation. "Of course! Gran would have killed us!"

Bethany blinks. "I'm sorry, Lia, did you just say Gran?"

"Gran's been here a week, Mother," Liana says archly, as though _obviously_ Bethany ought to _know_ this particular piece of information, as though Bethany hasn't been on the other side of the continent for the last half-season.

"Has she, now?"

"Yes, and she wanted to surprise you, but—" Lia cuts herself off, shoulders hunching guiltily. "Oops. I wasn't supposed to tell you."

"I think she really meant to surprise your Aunt Marian," Bethany murmurs, more to herself than to her daughter. It would astonish Bethany if her mother had already found out what had passed at Adamant, out in the desert; Lady Leandra Hawke has a knack for spywork that Bethany vastly prefers not to think about.

Lia scrunches her face. "Auntie Mari? Why?"

Bethany smiles down at her daughter, smooths a hand over her hair. "Auntie Mari loves to get in trouble, you know that."

Liana scrunches her face up even further, aware that there's something her mother isn't telling her, but not entirely aware of how to articulate the lack. It's the problem of being someone's child, perhaps; there's _something_ , and Lia _knows_ that there's _something_ , but she doesn't know how to ask.

Bethany thinks that there are certain things that are simply easier not to explain.

Maker, it would hurt them both more, if Lia had to know; how does anyone explain that someone they love isn't always a good person? How would Bethany even find the right words? _Are_ there even any right words, for that? _Your aunt does whatever she wants, and damn the consequences_.

But that's what it means, to love someone without conditions.

And Lia knows it, too. She chatters about other things, instead: Sister Leliana had sent word that the Inquisition would be back within the next day or so, and Lia had bothered Gran and Grand Enchanter Fiona both until they'd agreed to take all three children down to the village to meet their parents, if they could. Sister Leliana allows Carina to pet her birds; Lia is a little envious, but one of the remaining templars—Lysette—has taken to teaching Lia how to swing a sword properly. Malcolm still won't talk to anyone, and the other children think he's a bit weird, but since he spends rather a lot of his time with the Grand Enchanter, it's not been so bad.

It's a child's fill-in of the season that Bethany had missed.

 _Her_ child's fill-in.

And it continues for a very long while, until Liana catches sight of two people coming up the hill, and promptly forgets about her mother and her baby brother entirely. "Uncle Varric! Auntie Mari!"

"Hey, kiddo," Varric says, opens his arms. "Gimme a hug. Shit, Lia, have you grown? Crap, you did! You grew! You're almost taller than me!"

Lia is off of Bethany like a shot, gone to throw herself at Varric with a screech of unholy glee.

(There is very little doubt about which of her adults Liana likes best. The answer is Varric. the answer is _always Varric_. Varric spoils Lia and Carina rotten, and is rewarded with their undying adoration for it.)

Marian saunters to Bethany's side.

"That's disgusting," she says, wildly fond of everyone involved.

"I think it's sweet. Oh," Bethany says, like the afterthought it is, "Mari, just so you know, Mother's here."

Marian whirls to stare at her, horrified. "What do you _mean_ , Mother's here?!"

"You heard me," Bethany says mildly, blinking. "Mother's here. She wanted to surprise us."

"No," says Marian. "No, no-no-no-no-no! Absolutely not! she can't be here, that ruins everything!"

"I don't see how?"

"Bethy, if she's here, then that means she _knows_ ," Marian says, eyes a little haunted, a little _hunted_. "And if she knows, then she's going to yell at me!"

"Mother never yells, Mari. I don't know what you're talking about."

She doesn't need to yell to _yell_ , Bethy," Marian flaps her hand at Bethany as though she's warding off flies, utterly woebegone. "It's that thing she does with her face, and then your stomach drops to your knees and falls out of your cunt, and you'd rather be dead than deal with it! So, no! Not today! She's going to _yell_!"

Bethany thinks that her sister is being ridiculous. "Don't be dramatic, it's not that bad."

"It's _not_ dramatic," Marian says. "It's true. So, instead, we're going to lie."

"Pardon?"

"We're going to lie," Marian repeats, bright fervour in her face. "Can you—no, never mind, you can't lie to save your life. Varric—" and Marian's voice rises and she whirls about, shouting over the din of the market for her dwarf, "— _Varric_ , I need you! We're lying to my mother!"

"Hawke," Varric says gravely. "You know I love you more than anyone else on this bitch of an earth, but I can't lie to your mother. She'll never forgive me."

"Not if she never finds out!"

"C'mon, Hawke, you know I can't keep a secret!"

Sometimes, Bethany thinks that Varric and her sister are having an entirely different conversation than the one it sounds like they're having, all under the veneer of atrocious, wildly-told lies. Because Marian well knows that there's really no getting anything past Mother, and _Varric_ well knows that he's precisely the type to keep a secret that matters deep even after he's rotted through to dust. Neither of them even has a tick, because they do both lie. They lie all the time. Maybe they do it to stay in practise.

Varric, Marian, and all the stories spun between.

But the fact of the matter is this: if Marian isn't about to lie to their mother about her most recent alleged foray into the Fade, then she's actually going to have to bite the bit and either face Mother's not-inconsiderable disappointment, or—

Or she'll have to go north to the Anders, and deal with the fallout at Weisshaupt.

Bethany doesn't think that either of these options appeal to her older sister, Marian is very particular about her self-flagellation rituals.

And more than anything, Bethany knows that Marian misses Isabela. There's only so long that a person can be away from the person they're in love with before it starts to hurt too much to breathe.

(She looks at Alistair and thinks, for the second time, _never again._ Andraste. _Never again_.)

And maybe Marian knows that she misses Isabela, too.

The Champion of Kirkwall is not a slow creature to move. Marian Hawke makes every decision on a whim, depending on how it suits her in the moment; she comes and goes as she pleases, as she always has Bethany's entire life. Half in love with the sea, half in the love with the dregs of Darktown, all in love with Isabela, wherever she is.

That's what Marian _is_.

Bethany looks to find Alistair. He's across the market, still holding Carina, nodding, listening intently as their daughter continues to whisper in his ear, concentrated entirely even with Lia hanging off his other arm. It's such a little thing, but it's—

It's the same, isn't it?

It's the same, the love and the owning and the done-deep, sweet relief of knowing at the close of every long day, he'll be waiting there for her at the end of it. Bethany catches her husband's gaze across the space between them.

Smiles.

It's not the end of the world that Mother is here; the world remains more or less free of demon armies and the Wardens they control. The Wardens have Carver, and they'll follow him wherever he leads; for now, that's right back to Skyhold and the Inquisition.

And Marian—

Marian looks up from murmuring something to Varric.

Her mouth curls up, soft and fond and sad.

"Auntie Mari's going to leave," tells Bethany, very seriously. Her baby boy, so clear-eyed, always knowing things he ought not to know.

"Oh?" Bethany asks, even though she well knows that he's not wrong. "Why do you think that, darling?"

"She's scared of Gran."

Bethany laughs out loud. Andraste, for her son to see it, too; the Maker has a strange sense of humour, to shine a light on it after all of this time. Marian _is_ afraid of Mother—her son isn't wrong, about that. Bethany kisses the top of Malcolm's head, downy curls soft under her lips. "You think so?"

"M'right, Mummy," Mal says, scrunching his face into a frown. "I know I am!"

"You _are_ right, darling," Bethany smiles. "I believe you."

This mollifies Mal, some. He buries his face back into Bethany's throat, huffs out a puff of air in baby-irritation. He's the cuddliest of all her children, far more attached to Bethany than either of her daughters have ever been, and that's never more obvious than it is right now, when he's clinging the way he is. She presses her mouth to his temple.

 _My baby, my baby_. Andraste, she really never should have left him alone for so long.

Paying attention to Mal as she is, Bethany hardly feels the ghost-press of dry lips to her cheek.

When Bethany finishes fussing with her son, both Varric and Alistair are staring at her, faint sorrow from the former and quiet acceptance from the latter, sandwiched between Liana and Carina both.

Marian's gone.

Bethany can't really say she's surprised. Marian hasn't ever been any good at goodbyes. In a small way, it's oddly reassuring to know that no matter how much the world changes, this will not.

Even at the end of the world and after, some things _do_ stay the same.

Still.

A curl of her older sister's lips and a kiss on the cheek. It's more than Bethany's had in the past, when Marian decided to disappear into the Void.

Bethany shrugs at her husband, at her old friend. They've lingered here long enough; the rest of the Inquisition has long left the village to head back up the mountain, and the Inquisitor along with them. Only the Grand Enchanter remains, but she stands a little ways away, watching them all with a startling longing in her gaze that near knocks the breath out of Bethany's lungs.

Oh, _family_.

Bethany hoists Malcolm up higher against her chest. The trek up the mountain is long, and if they want to make it before nightfall, they'll have to leave right now. Alistair has set Carina down, and she and Lia are peppering Varric with questions—it's like they never even left.

And Skyhold—

Skyhold waits.

—

.

.

.

.

.

 _tbc_.


	8. tricks the maker plays

**disclaimer** : disclaimed  
 **dedication** : to my very clear apartment and my mom, who is coming to visit. are these things connected? abso-fucking-lutely.  
 **notes** : Alistair Theirin Has A Mental Break: The Movie

 **title** : tricks the maker plays  
 **summary** : There is a new Commander in Haven. — templar!au part ii; Alistair/Bethany.

—

.

.

.

.

.

Mother is exactly as Bethany remembers her.

She is still just as stately and measured as she's ever been, the cool grey steel of her hair pulled back into an elegant chignon—Orana's doing, no doubt—and wearing a gossamer shawl that looks as though it's woven of pure quicksilver. She doesn't look as though she's travelled across half the known world and the Waking Sea besides, perfectly unruffled and utterly in her element.

Bethany's mother is _terrifying_.

The twins are clung to Dog with all the joy two small girls presented with a giant war dog are capable of; when Marian had left Kirkwall the first time, she'd left Dog with Mother, her excuse something about wanting to make sure that Mother was looked after. Dog, in the interim, has mostly gotten fat and even more snuggly than he used to be, and if he doesn't spend the rest of his natural life following Liana about begging for head pats, Bethany will be starkly aghast.

Dog is a simple creature, and one so easily pleased.

"I heard a whisper about the peace talks at the Winter Palace," says Mother, so casually. She's knitting, the _click-click_ of the needles a repetitive, soothing sound. "Do be careful when you're there, darling. Orlesians and their masks, you know."

Bethany blinks. "Why would I go to the Winter Palace, Mother?"

Mother snorts. "Because your husband is the Commander of the Inquisition, and _you_ are Kirkwall's Lady Hawke. You both have a vested interest in being there, and I expect I'll be rather insulted if you're not invited. The Compte de Launcet and I are old friends."

"Didn't you leave him for Father?"

"Yes, and he was very glad I did," Mother says, dismissive. "He could tumble that servant girl he married all he wanted without me around! It was better for everyone involved.

"You sound like Mari," Bethany says, because that does sound _frightfully_ like something her older sister would say.

Mother pauses for a moment; the clicking ceases. Bethany catches sight of her mother's face out of the corner of her eye, and it strikes her that her mother looks very, very far away. As far as Weisshaupt, perhaps, or maybe even further. Somewhere lost in time, in the old halls of love and memory where she keeps the parts of herself that she doesn't want Bethany to see.

"Yes," says Mother, eventually. "I suppose I do."

Bethany watches her until the clicking picks up again. Marian stands between them, so heavy that she's almost there, the shade of her near solid and smirking and Bethany's older sister always tends to be. Mother hasn't said anything about Adamant, and at this point, Bethany doesn't think she will. It's been made very clear to Bethany and Carver both how their mother feels about it, and she hasn't needed to say it with words. That she's here at all is enough, and the Hawke children all know it.

Mother will let her disappointment lie, and they'll be better for it.

"Oh, and darling?"

Bethany looks up from her book. "Yes?"

"Keep an eye an Alistair, would you?" Mother asks, perfectly breezy. "He's going to have a difficult time of it, this next while. Nothing that either of you can fix—" Mother adds, before Bethany can cut her off and demand just _what_ , precisely, she's talking about, "—but I doubt either of you will be pleased, all the same."

" _Mother_."

Mother shrugs. "It might be a good idea to leave the children here, tonight. You two may want to be alone, that's all."

Oh, Andraste, what has Bethany's mother put into motion, _now_?

It strikes Bethany again that her mother really _is_ very much like her older sister, except that her mother had grown up in polite society and is a little more civilized for it. But underneath the civility and the dowager's bearing is the woman who'd raised the Champion of Kirkwall to the feral bog creature, sea raider, knife-cut dagger-in-the-night that she is.

But Mother raised Bethany, too.

And that still counts for something.

Bethany sets her book aside and stands, pretending not to see the slight curl of Mother's lips. This is a manipulation, but what _isn't_ a manipulation, anymore? Kirkwall, for all its awful eldritch horrors, had at least been honest about it. Bethany had thought that Ferelden might be better in this, and in some ways it is; there is a rawness to the land and the people who work it, but as ever, Lady Leandra Hawke manages to get her children exactly where she wants them without having to do overmuch work to achieve it.

And if she leaves the children here, it will be _far_ too much like Mother backed her into a corner.

"I'm sorry, Mother, I don't want to impose."

"It's no imposition, darling—"

"Malcolm's been bothering me to let him stay with the Grand Enchanter. I'll ask her if she has the time to look after them," Bethany says. She gathers up her things, her book and her basket of mending, needle and thread and spindle, her stave leaning by the door. She never goes anywhere without it, anymore.

Mother covers a laugh behind a cough. Her eyes have that sparkle-chime of mischief to them that only ever means trouble, but Bethany ignores it.

"Yes, dear," says Mother. "I'm sure that will be fine, too.

Bethany has the distinct impression that her mother is _laughing_ at her.

That's _never_ a good feeling. Every time Mother is laughing at someone, it's usually because something is about to blow up in their face and they are entirely unaware of it.

Mother has something of a cruel streak, Bethany remembers.

There's nothing for it.

"I'll see you later, Mother," Bethany says. She tucks her curls behind her ear, out of her eyes, and doesn't allow the waver of worry into her voice. Nothing will ever be as bad as that time on the Wounded Coast; she and Alistair have certainly dealt with worse.

"Have a good day, dear!" Mother calls, but Bethany is already closing the door.

It's not a long walk, from her mother's quarters to her own.

But Maker, it feels like an Age.

Bethany blows back into their quarters, intent on finding a shawl and then making her way to the War Room—Alistair spends his time between there and his office, but given how early it is, he likely hasn't yet left for his office—but she stops short at the sight of her husband sitting at the table scrubbing over his face with his hands.

He is _trembling_.

"Alistair?" Bethany whispers. It seems to echo in the cavern of the room, the walls cold, the chill all the way down her spine. "Alistair, what _happened_?"

He startles, jumps into standing, stares about wildly as though he expects darkspawn or a Knight-Commander or—

Or their children.

 _Oh_ , Bethany thinks.

Alistair sort of slumps, though, when he sees that it's only Bethany.

"Maker's breath," he says. His voice cracks right down the middle, every jagged edge broke and bleeding, and he wrings his hands like he's not sure what to do with himself. "It's good to see you."

Book and basket hit the floor, the clatter of her stave the only sound, and then Bethany is across the room with her hands curled against his chest, fingers woven into the fabric of his shirt, holding him close and steady. "What happened?"

"Nothing, it's nothing—"

"It's definitely _something_ , Alistair! What happened?!"

Alistair stares down at her for a very long time, his mouth just the slightest bit parted. Somewhere in the back of her head, Bethany thinks that he's _never_ looked at her like this; Alistair looks at her as though she is the answer to a question he hadn't even thought to ask, not like she's a life-preserver thrown to a drowning man.

But right now, he looks like he _needs_ a life-preserver.

"I love you," he says.

"I know," Bethany says, eyebrows pulling together with the concern. "I love you, too."

"No, it's—I love you too much," Alistair croaks, inhaling shakily. His hands crawl up her hips to her back, yank her in close. "Too much. It's too much, Beth."

Bethany catches his face in her hands, holds him still, forces him to look her in the eye. There is so much, so many things in his eyes that she doesn't _understand_. Bewilderment is overridden by determination, because even though she doesn't understand, that doesn't mean she can just let him go on _thinking_ that. "Why do you say that?"

"Because it is," he says, shaking harder now, harder. "It's too much, love, you own all of me—"

"Alistair," Bethany says. "Do you really think that's true?"

"Maker's breath, I don't _know_ —"

"Would you love me less, if you could?"

Alistair physically recoils. "No!"

"Then it's not too much. Would you have me have less of you, if you could?"

" _No_!"

"Then it's not too much!" Bethany snaps, hard as she can to drive it home. But Andraste, she can never keep her ire at him for long, especially not over something like this. Bethany gentles, touches the corner of his mouth with her thumb. "It's never been too much. How could you ever think it was?"

Alistair collapses into her, blown over like a house of cards caught in a cold draught. Bethany takes all of his weight, and takes it gladly.

"Isn't it?" he asks her throat, very quietly. "Isn't it too much? It feels like too much."

"No," Bethany murmurs. "It's not, Alistair, you know it's not."

He turns his face in towards her, nose along the line of her cheek, stubble rough and then their mouth-to-mouth, breathing the same air. There is _anguish_ to him, such bubbling, raw _pain_. Bethany can hear it rattling through his chest with every inhale.

"Hi," Bethany says, because she doesn't know what else to do.

"Hello," says Alistair, because he might not know what to do, either.

It's such an old call and reply between them, affection as easy as breathing, affection without affection at all; the beginnings of a starfall love story, as Bethany understands it. She reaches up to cup his cheek again, and the way he leans into it aches between her teeth. "I love you.

"Yes, I did just say that, or did you not hear me?"

"That's a terrible joke," Bethany tells him, because frankly it is. But his eyes crinkle with it, just a little, and so she eases. "I mean it, though, Alistair, it's not too much. It could never be too much."

"Oh, I don't know about that—"

"Alistair."

"What if one day it is?"

And there it is, there is the real fear.

 _What if one day it is? What if, one day, you don't want me anymore? What then?_

Bethany draws a finger down the length of his nose, twice-broken and mended, fine bone and cartilage beneath her hands. She's always liked his face, even when he was younger and even less foolish than he pretended to be. Long-featured, honey-wine dark eyes beneath sandy eyebrows and a sandier fringe, sun-speckled golden everywhere and that self-deprecating tongue in that crooked grin of a mouth; it's a nice face, all things considered, Alistair's face. The face she knows best. The face she _likes_ the best, truly. Funny and sweet and sardonic, in turn.

And kind, too.

Always so, so kind.

 _What if one day it is_ , he asks, as though there's any universe where she doesn't want him. As though she even could! As though he's not been her first and her last and her only—as though there was ever the option of someone else.

As though even if there had been, he wouldn't have been her choice.

Bethany casts back into the wild halls of ancient memory, picking through the things she's never told him. Alistair needs something to ground him, and maybe she can be good, for that. And there, in a dusty corner of her mind, like a picture frame forgotten in an attic. A bauble, a distraction.

An old love.

"Do you know when I knew that I was never going to love anyone else?" Bethany offers.

Alistair makes a low, questioning sound. "When?"

"We were on the ship to Kirkwall," Bethany tells him, softly. Andraste, they'd been so young; trapped in that cold, dank little hold, desperately hoping against all hope that whatever was on the other side of the Waking Sea was better than what was behind them. It had been so miserable; she'd sworn to herself, then, that she was never getting on another ship so long as she lived.

"You were so ill," Alistair murmurs. His breath stirs the air. "You couldn't keep anything down."

"Not even water," Bethany says, wryly. "But—it was late, and everyone was asleep except for us, and Mari. She was being awful, but Andraste, I think was feeling too terrible to sleep."

"You slept a little," he says.

"Really? Are you sure? I don't remember sleeping."

"I held you through most of it," Alistair says, grinning a little lopsided. "It was the only times you did. Maker's breath, you always hated being cold."

Bethany smiles against the blade of his jaw. "Soft-hearted."

"Soft- _headed_ , maybe."

"Are you going to let me tell you about it, or not?"

"Ignore me, please continue," Alistair says, utterly cheerful and sounding a little more like himself for a moment. "It is _fascinating_ to hear you talk about this."

Bethany ignores the jibe, because she knows for a fact that he _does_ , in truth, find it fascinating. The memory is midnight blue, prickled over with sea salt and starlight, and Maker, she'd loved him more than she'd thought it possible to love another person. Even then she'd known it down in her bones. She'd loved him and she loves him and she will love him 'til she dies, and so she chooses her words with care.

"You brought me up on deck, even though we weren't supposed to be up there," Bethany says, soft and slow. "I must have been feeling horribly, you were so gentle. And then we talked about—my father, I think, and the stars."

"Sacrifice," Alistair murmurs the word. He shuffles her closer. "And the wolf."

Bethany shrugs a shoulder. He remembers that. How does he remember that? "Yes. But I remember looking up at you and… knowing that there'd never be anyone else. It was always just going to be you."

"Really? That early?"

Bethany nods, ducking her head a little with the truth of it. It's too big a thing, the truth. Too much.

 _Oh_.

"It won't ever go away," Bethany says, so quietly, more wind than sound. Her lips brush his mouth. "I don't even think I'd know how to love someone else."

Alistair shudders against her, goes entirely limp, the bulk of him heavy in her arms. It's like he can't hold himself up. Bethany touches him careful, and thinks that they both could use a bit of a lie down.

"Come to bed with me?" she asks him.

He nods into her throat.

It's more than either of them can bear.

"Where are the twins? Mal?" Alistair asks, after Bethany's herded him into their bed and stripped him bare of his armour and all the rest of it, too. "Are they alright?"

"It's fine, we don't need to worry about it," Bethany says. She brushes her hand through his hair. "I've left them with the Grand Enchanter, they'll—"

Alistair lets out a bark of laughter unlike anything Bethany has ever heard in her life, half-wet, bled through with hysteria. "Bloody—Maker's balls, of course!"

Bethany blinks down at him. "What?"

"My—the Grand Enchanter, she's—" Alistair chokes on it, still laughing but so _awful_ around it, so hollow. "Shite. Beth, love, she's my _mother_."

Bethany drops to the bed next to him, wide-eyed. "What?!"

"I wasn't, I didn't want to, it was—" Alistair cuts himself off, garbling up the worlds. He grinds his palms into his eyes. " _Fuck_."

"Alistair, it's alright, you don't have to—"

"No, I do," he says, harsh on the exhale, still a little wet. He drags Bethany over until she's half on top of him, her weight bearing him down to slow the too-fast panicked pound of his heart in his throat. "I need to—c'mere, would you, love? I need you to—yes, there."

Bethany shifts so that the rest of her in on top of him. Alistair gratefully buries his face in her fair, takes a pair of slow breaths for a moment of silent calm.

She waits.

He'll come back to her.

(He always does.)

"Right," Alistair says, eventually. "So. This, this whole thing. I-I didn't know."

"I know," Bethany murmurs into his chest. "I know you didn't."

Alistair's fingers dig into her waist at the reassurance, warm, but his voice is so halting and shattered that it sounds like he's trying to talk without teeth. "I didn't—they told me she died, Beth. And that I—that I had a sister, but I don't, do I? I don't have—and she's—Eamon told me she was _dead_."

Bethany reaches up. Curls a hand around his face, again. "Maybe he thought she was?"

"No," Alistair shakes his head, swallows hard. "No, he'd have known. He had to have known."

"You don't know that for sure," Bethany whispers. She almost wants to say _you could write him, you know_ , but—

But that would only hurt Alistair worse, and he doesn't need more hurt, right now. Bethany stays close, smiles only a little sadly when Alistair turns his face to press a kiss to her palm.

"What do I do, Beth?" he asks her hands, a ragged plea. "How do I—what do I _do_?"

Bethany curls in closer, lets her hair hang forward to close out the rest of the world until all that's left is her and Alistair and the space between them. His breathing turns a little more even as she does; he needs something to focus on, does Alistair, when he gets like this.

Maybe it's the lyrium.

But maybe it's just Alistair, too.

"You don't have to do anything if you don't want," Bethany says, quietly.

"Don't I?"

"No, you don't."

Alistair exhales, very slowly, a conscious thing. He closes his eyes for a second longer than a standard blink. When he opens them a moment later, it's to smile at her, a little wry. "What would I do without you?"

"I think you'd be alright," Bethany tells him. "You managed without me for a good long time."

Alistair scoffs. "Yes, but that was before I knew you. It doesn't count, love. I don't think I could do it, now."

"Is there nothing you'd go without me for?" Bethany asks, sinking down. She crosses her arms over his chest, pillows her face there. It's easier to look at him, like this. "Nothing at all?"

"I told you it was too much."

"Alistair, I will kiss you if you say that again."

He chuckles at the mental image and then sobers, quiets down as he really, truly thinks about it. A long, drawn-out silence hovers between them, but it's not an uncomfortable thing. Simply—waiting, that's all.

"No," Alistair says, finally, strangely, as though he's come to a very life-changing realization with it. "There's nothing. I wouldn't give you up for anything."

Bethany doesn't say _not even out children_ , but only because that would be extraordinarily unfair. It's something that they've agreed not to talk about; they love each other too much, but they both love their children _more_.

It's a terrible burden, to love another person so much.

"…Do we want to tell them?" Bethany asks. "Or would you rather we didn't?"

Alistair turns very pale. He's forgotten, apparently, that there's a world beyond the little bubble of their reality; that the Grand Enchanter exists as a person beyond his own feelings surrounding the matter. That she's someone their children—all _three_ of them, including Mal, incredible as it seems—have a very real affection for.

"D'you think that's why she saved his life?" Alistair asks, stricken. The long, awful treck from Haven to Skyhold hangs between them. Bethany can still feel Malcolm her in her arms, so small and so sick, every sucking wet breath that could have been his last.

Her _baby_.

But in truth—

"Maybe" Bethany says. "But maybe that doesn't matter. Mal would have died if she hadn't, Alistair, and you know it."

"Yeah," he says, a tiny sough of sound. "Yeah, I know. Sorry, Beth. That was unfair."

"It wasn't unfair," she says, because it wasn't, not really. There are things that Alistair is going through that Bethany can't touch, even if she wanted to. "But—it was a little unkind."

"Only a little?"

"Only a little."

Alistair huffs a laugh, and stokes a hand down the length of Bethany's spine and back up againt, tangling in the curls at the base of her skull at the very end of it. He tugs, very carefully. "Why were you looking for me? Not that I mind, though, I dunno what I'd do if you weren't."

"Hm?" Bethany makes an enquiring sound. Alistair's hands in her hair always feels too nice to ruin with words.

"Earlier. When you came in, you…" Alistair trails off. "It was like you were looking for me. Were you?"

Bethany props her jaw up. She'd forgotten that she _had_ been looking for him; in the aftermath of actually _finding_ him, it had completely slipped her mind.

"I was," Bethany says, thoughtfully. "My mother said—something. It was odd."

"What'd she say?"

"She told me to keep an eye on you. That you'd—" she breaks off, shakes her head. There is a far-away anger shimmering on her horizon, but now is not the time. Mother is as Mother does. "I suppose it makes sense. She always knows everything before everyone else."

"That I'd what?"

"That you'd be having a hard time of it, for a while," Bethany says, softly, like an apology. She hadn't wanted to say it. Likely, Alistair hadn't wanted to hear it, either. There's something very gutting, in knowing that someone else is voyeur to one's private pain.

"Your mother is terrifying. Have I told you that, recently?"

"I am aware, yes," Bethany sighs. "What are we going to do about—?"

" _My_ mother?" Alistair finishes the sentence for her. He is only a little bit bitter. "Maker's breath, I've no idea. I don't even know where to begin."

 _Here_ , Bethany wants to say, wants to touch his ribs and his shoulders and the planes of his bare chest. _Here_ , his throat and his hips and his knobby knees. _Here_ , his mouth. _Here_ , his hands. _Here_ , all of him, absolutely all of him.

She lies on top of him and listens to the thrumming on his heart, and wonders about owning.

"We don't have to do anything if you don't want," Bethany tells him. She needs him to know that, more than anything; they don't need to do anything with it, not if he doesn't want to. They can pretend it never happened if it'll be easier for him to get through the day.

Alistair grins into her hair. It's not a happy thing. "I appreciate it, love, but I don't see _how_. I'm a terrible actor."

"And an even worse liar," Bethany says.

They both laugh even though it's not very funny.

Alistair runs his thumb over the high curve of her cheekbone, a gentle swipe back and forth as though he's brushing away dirt. He's always so _careful_ with her. Bethany tips her head, presses her mouth to the knob of his wrist. _I love you_ , says the gesture. Says every gesture, really. _I love you, I love you, I love you_.

"If you keep that up, we're going to end up with more than three children," Alistair says, mild for now but hovering on the tipping edge into the low-slung, sweet dark. "I could stand to drown in you and not think for a while, if you've a mind."

"Are you really asking?"

"I always ask," Alistair says, grins as he dips up to nudge his nose against hers. It's not quite a kiss. It burns heavy in Bethany's stomach instead, worse for it, somehow.

Maker, but Alistair always makes her so _hungry_.

Bethany barely has to move to wrap her arms around his neck, caging him beneath her. A low, needy sound escapes him.

"Well, we _are_ going to be alone for a while," Bethany says. She moves a fraction of an inch, and their lips just barely touch. "We have the time to drown."

Alistair swears.

"You are _perfect_ ," he growls, and pulls her down.

—

Three days later, Lady Lavellan holds Judgement.

There's a line of them: the magister from Redcliffe, first, but then the mayor of Crestwood and a fair few others. Lady Lavellan is slow, and methodical and—let it be said—very fair. When the magister in white from Adamant is brought before her, her face is blank of emotion.

"No one is coming for you, Livius," she says. "And no one ever will. They've released you to us, did you know? Your lords don't want to deal with the mess you've made, and frankly, neither do I. I'd throw you down a pit and forget about you, but I won't be that cruel to a pit.

Livius Erimond looks like he's about to sneer something uncouth, but Lady Lavellan holds up a hand, and not one word leaves his mouth.

"For your crimes against Thedas," she says, but there is no joy in it, "By my hand, execution."

And when it's done—and it is _is_ done, the Inquisitor and a knife and a sharp, vicious slash across the throat—it is the Wardens' turn.

Carver is standing there with them, the line of his shoulders loose and easy in the blue and silver. He looks _comfortable_ there, talking quietly to one of his Constables, waiting with a stolid kind of grace for whatever fate the Inquisitor plans to mete out.

Lady Montilyet takes a slow breath, and reads from her board. Collusion, apostasy, aiding and abetting a Tevinter criminal organization, even unknowingly. Participation in blood magic rites, binding demons and Wardens and kinslaying, insofar as the Wardens see one another as kin.

None of which is all that surprising, actually, but Bethany still can't breathe.

"I wasn't aware you'd be part of this," the Inquisitor says, crooking an eyebrow at Carver. "If I remember correctly, you fell into the Fade, too."

Carver shrugs. "I _am_ a Warden."

"A Warden who's been made Commander of the Grey, or so I hear."

"Please don't remind me."

Lady Lavellan's lips twitch just a little, bright amusement before it ripples away and her face is ivory smooth again. Bethany lets out the stale breath of air she'd been holding in her lungs. Whatever happens, it's unlikely that the Lady Inquisitor will sentence Bethany's twin to death, and right now, that's all that Bethany cares about. Even a banishment wouldn't be so terrible; they'd write to one another, and it would be no different than what they'd had in the first place. It's not the end of the world.

Mother, at Bethany's side, clutches so tightly to her wrist that Bethany can feel her bones creak.

"And you will abide by whatever judgement I pass?"

"We will," Carver says.

Lady Lavellan seems to weigh this for a moment, her gaze flickering, never staying in one place for more than a fraction of a blink. She's had very much practise at keeping her face still, Bethany thinks, and feels a fleeting sorrow for a loss of someone else's innocence.

The silence goes on for so long. Bethany doesn't dare inhale.

"Conscription," Lady Lavellan says. "There are better ways to make up for what happened then exile, Commander Hawke, and I think you know it. We'll have orders for you, soon. Dismissed."

"Thank you, Inquisitor," Carver says. Bethany's twin raises his head; Andraste, he's so tall, stands head and shoulders above most people in the room, why on the Maker's green earth did he have to grow up so _big_?

"Wardens," Bethany's brother calls. "March!"

And they do.

The Wardens file from the throne room, and none of them look back.

"Bethany," Mother says, thinly, "Come for a walk with me, would you?"

"Of course, Mother," Bethany says, and carefully links her arm through Mother's elbow. There are moments where Bethany understands that her mother is—fragile, for lack of a better word, where her children are concerned; a little less ironclad than Bethany always thought she was. There is a tremble to her, now, that Bethany finds often in herself when she looks at her own children. Liana and Carina and Malcolm engender the same desperate emotion that she and her siblings engender in Mother. It's a warped mirror, but a beloved one.

Bethany and Mother follow the Wardens at a distance, meandering in their wake. Carver allows his people to disperse into the seething throng of Skyhold's market, rubbing at his head.

Still, he waits for Mother and Bethany to catch up.

"Well, it's better than a rusty poker to the face," Carver sighs, scrubbing a hand across his hair. "I'm not sure what else I expected. Hello, Mother."

Leandra Hawke, imperious in all things, opens her arms and wraps them around her only son. "I am very glad you're not dead."

"Thanks," he says. "So am I."

"You haven't been acting like it," Mother says, archly. Bethany remembers thinking that perhaps her mother was going to let her disappointment lie; Andraste, one day she's going to learn that her mother never lets _anything_ lie. "Really, Carver, the Fade? Of all things, you let your sister drag you _physically_ into the _Fade_?!"

"I didn't _let_ her do anything," Carver says, under his breath. Mother purses her lips at him. "I'm sorry, if it helps?"

"It does," Mother pronounces.

She surveys Carver up and down, then does the same to Bethany; it's a quick once-over, meant to ensure that they're both more or less in one piece. "I know you have duties, dear, bit I expect you for supper tonight. You as well, Bethany, darling. Bring the children and Alistair."

"Mother, I'm not sure—"

"No excuses, Bethany, it's been too long since we've had a meal together," Mother says, crisp. She adjusts her quicksilver shawl around her shoulders; the fragility from before is gone as though it had never been. All there is to Mother, in this moment, is a cool clean determination that Bethany knows all too well. That's where Marian gets it from, at any rate.

"Ah," says Mother. "I see Madame de Fer bothering the Grand Enchanter. Lovely, I need to speak with them both. Have a good day, darlings, and I'll see you later!"

Mother has turned and gone, spine straight and shoulders square, before Bethany even has half a chance to open her mouth. There it is again, for a moment, the shining, sparkling _fizz_ of anger beneath Bethany's skin, but it disappears as soon as Mother is out of sight. Bethany thinks that she's probably going to have to deal with that, even though she's not entirely sure where's it's _coming_ from.

Anger isn't exactly an emotion that Bethany is comfortable with allowing herself to feel.

"She really hasn't change at all, has she?" Carver asks.

"If anything, she's gotten worse," says Bethany, rather darkly. "Andraste, sometimes she makes me miss Mari."

"What? _Why_?"

"It's—I—" Bethany breaks off, sighing heavily, shaking her head. Her curls are everywhere. "It's not really my story to tell. You're better off asking Alistair."

"What did she do," Carver says, flatly. It's not a question.

But Bethany just shakes her head a second time. "I mean it, Carver, you have to ask Alistair about it. I won't be able to tell it right."

Carver looks at Bethany for a long moment, squinting against the autumn sun. "…Does it change anything?"

"I'm sorry?"

Carver makes a very rude gesture at Bethany's _everything_. "Whatever you're talking about, does it change anything? You're still married to him?"

"No, I suppose it—doesn't really change anything," Bethany says, blinking. The end of the world, but only a small, personal scale. "And of course, we're still married!"

"Then he's still the templar bastard what married my sister," Carver says, easily. "It can't be _that_ bad."

Sometimes, Bethany forgets that Carver has absolutely no filter.

(Forgets that _none_ of her family has any filter, in fact. Marian is no better, and neither is Mother. Bethany can't even really say that _she's_ any good at it, herself, and Alistair wouldn't know a filter if it hit him in the face.)

This is one of those times.

"I don't know what to say to you right now," Bethany says, a little stunned. "You—I— _Carver_!"

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Don't you have _any_ tact?"

"You don't generally need tact to be a Warden," Carver points out, pretending at wise the way he does when he wants to be truly annoying. He shrugs. "As long as you can hit darkspawn in the face really, really hard, you're usually fine— _ow_ , Maker, don't _hit_ me! What was that for?!"

"For being a prat!" Bethany huffs at him. "You're lucky I don't have my staff, you'd be frozen where you stand."

"Been a bit chilly, recently—"

"Carver!" Bethany whirls around to _glare_ at him, palms sparkling. She doesn't need her staff to hurry him half in the dirt or singe his eyebrows off; those are things she can do all on her own, and she won't feel even slightly guilty for it. "Don't start, I mean it!"

"Maker's balls, alright, alright, I take it back," her twin says, holding up his hands in surrender. "Is it really that bad?"

Bethany has to take a deliberate, steadying breath, and she wraps her arms around herself. The magic flickers and dies, slides back into the pool in the centre of her chest. "Yes, it is. So, leave it alone, will you? I don't want to have to hex you into next week, but I will if I must."

It's not often that Bethany has to threaten someone with a cursing, and they both know it.

(Andraste. Just when they'd been getting along so well.)

"Sorry, Buttercup," Carver says, quietly, after a moment. "I didn't mean it."

And all of a sudden, Bethany wants to cry. She doesn't even know why. It's just Carver, and Carver being Carver the way he always is. But it's also the apology, and the fact that Alistair has been so busy that Bethany's hardly seen him since they spent the day in bed, and it's that her mother—her _mother_ , who ought to _know better_ —is absolutely in on the whole ordeal. It's that Marian's gone, and that the Grand Enchanter saved Malcolm's life, and that so many people died at Adamant that she can still feel the blood beneath her fingernails. It's that she feels like she's lost something so important to who she is, but she doesn't know what it is she's _lost_.

It's that she's here when she wants to be wrapped around her husband, but she _can't_ be, because they both have to be adults.

Bethany swipes angrily at her eyes. "Forget it. It doesn't matter."

"Oh, Maker, now I feel like a right tit," Carver mutters. He puts his arms around her, a little uncomfortable with it. He's not much one for _hugging_ , her twin. "C'mon, Bethy, please don't cry."

Bethany sniffs into her twin chest. It's been a long time since she's had the opportunity to get snot all over one of Carver's shirts and even longer since she's had a reason to do so. Carver pats her back, only faintly awkward; he was never much better at crying women than Marian was, and had even less reason to have had practise at it.

Bethany was really the only girl who'd ever had reason to cry at Carver, and he'd always avoided the fallout like the plague.

This, obviously, hasn't changed in the slightly. It almost makes her laugh.

Bethany wipes her eyes again, a little less bitter, a little less angry. It's easier to remember what matters, when her twin smells like dust and sunlight and the faint metallic tinge of old blood and new steel.

She hugs Carver, and Carver hugs her back, and it's so tight that Bethany's ribs creak.

There are worse things in the world.

"Are you doing to tell me why you're so upset, now?"

"No," says Bethany. "You really do need to ask Alistair."

"I still think he's a twat," says Carver, mildly.

"Liar," Bethany says. "You like him. You talked to him the whole way back."

"Only because there was no one else to talk to. _You_ were half asleep, and I wasn't about to talk to _Mar_ ," says Carver, wrinkling his nose. "Can you imagine? I'd have to hear about Isabela's knickers."

"Varric?" Bethany tries. "Ser Cullen?"

Carver is horrified. "Sod _that_! If I have to talk to a templar, I'll talk to the one you liked enough to have children! At least _he's_ halfway decent company!"

"So you do like Alistair, then," Bethany says, smiling out of the corner of her mouth. It's only a little bit wet, and she's managed to mostly put herself back in one piece.

Bethany feels—better. A little.

Carver _harumphs_. "I tolerate him. Still a twat, though."

"Language, Carver. If Mal picks it up, I'll never forgive you. He's enough of a handful already."

"Is _he_ still exactly like Mar?"

"More every day," says Bethany, shrugs around a hard swallow. Her _baby_. "He gets into everything. I don't know what I'm going to do."

Carver hovers awkwardly. "Do you think—do you think he'd be better, if she was around more?"

"Probably," Bethany says, though it hurts to admit. It hurts to admit that she, Bethany, might not be enough to keep her own children alright. "She won't stay anywhere, though, you know how she is."

"She's in love with a bloody pirate, yes," Carver says, darkly.

"And we're all happier for it," Bethany reminds him. Carver gets so knotted up in Marian's shadow sometimes that he forgets that she was even _less_ stable before Isabela, if only because Isabela was the first person for whom their sister was willing to come _back_.

"Mental, that."

"You're a Warden, and I fell in with and got married to a templar," Bethany says, leaning her head against Carver's shoulder.

(A templar who is also a prince, and the son of the Grand Enchanter who dissolved the Nevarran Accords. Bethany winces. She and Alistair are never going to be able to live a quiet life, are they? There is _always_ going to be something on fire.)

Bethany pauses, looks up at her twin. It's on the tip of her tongue, the question about love that she never asked him. _I fell in love with a templar_ , she'd said, and so she had, but Carver—Carver had never really fallen in love with anybody. But it's—

It's not really the right question, Bethany thinks. Love, for Carver, isn't really the right question.

"Are you happy, Carver?" she asks. "Now?"

He's older, Bethany realizes. There are streaks of white in the wild dark mess of his hair, crows' feet at the corner of both his eyes. There's a long, badly-healed scar along the line of his jaw that looks like he took a darkspawn claw to the face, and a nick through one of his eyebrows that might have been a training accident. Stories in his skin that she doesn't know.

But her twin's eyes are still blue as the summer sky, and he's still square-jawed and sulky as a matter of course. He hasn't changed so much that Bethany can't see her own reflection in him.

Carver slings an arm around her, kisses the top of her head.

"Yeah, Buttercup," he says. "I think I am."

—

Evemeal is profoundly less awful than Bethany had thought it would be.

Between the merry crimson-orange crackle of the fire, and Liana and Carina alternately peppering Carver and Varric with questions, and Malcolm attached to Bethany's hip with Alistair's chin hooked over her shoulder, determinedly ignoring any and all things that are not either Bethany herself or their children, and Mother with her tea in the corner, watching them all with warm, pleased eyes; it's a _very_ loud evening. It reminds Bethany of Kirkwall, when Solona and Neria were still close enough by that they'd be about to keep the twins entertained with bright coloured plumes of magic to chase away into the garden. Marian and Isabela, too; their absence here, now, is a gaping wound. Merrill, and Fenris, and Aveline, and Anders—there is a _missing_ to the lack of their presence that Bethany had not expected, for all that it's the closest she's felt to being back to perfect rights in months.

She misses her family, Bethany realizes; all of her family, even the bits she doesn't think about so often.

Because it's hard not to think of Solona's gentle manner, the quiet of her hands and eyes of smile. It's hard not to think about Neria's spider-silk hair, and her curiosity, and her enamoured fascination with the whole world. Anders and his healing hands and his shaking righteous fury, Aveline and her fearlessness, Fenris' perpetual scowl, Isabela's horrible cheer.

But most of all, Bethany misses Merrill, and Merrill's friendship, and always having someone to talk who she didn't feel like she had to _hide_ things from. It's not like Alistair _doesn't_ know everything, but—Merrill had known _everything_ , because they'd simply had no reason not to tell each other _everything_. Bethany had been there to pick out broken glass from Merrill's palms when Merrill and Fenris had started being Merrill-and-Fenris, and Merrill had been there to force Bethany out into the sun when Marian had left Carver down in the dark of the Deep Roads.

 _I feel like I've lost my best friend_ , Bethany thinks, and has to sit down to that she doesn't collapse.

(There are so many kinds of love in the world, and unconditional friendship is one that Bethany most certainly does not have enough of. Thinking about the lack is like putting her heart between her teeth.)

Merrill is exactly who Bethany wants to talk to about Alistair's mother, and she _can't_ , because it's not something she can put in a letter for fear of it going awry. Kirkwall is long ways away, and with their broken mirror of luck—

Maker knows, Merrill understands broken mirrors.

But now isn't the right time to ruminate about it. The family Bethany _can_ touch is all here, and it's an awful disservice to them to write them off for want of her very best friend.

Besides, as much as Bethany misses Merrill, she'd miss Alistair more.

"Do you need a minute, love?" Alistair asks, into her ear. He's sunshine warm and sunshine heavy over her shoulder, and he hasn't yet stopped touching her; he's settled himself against her back, pasted himself to her side, and he doesn't let her out of his reach if he can help it. Bethany understands the urge: this, all of this, it's easier to survive when you've got something familiar to hold on to.

And Bethany won't deny Alistair the comfort of it, when there's so little comfort to be found elsewhere in their lives.

"No, I'm alright," Bethany murmurs. She tips her head up to be kissed. "Are you?"

Alistair's fingers tighten for the barest sliver of a second. He's not alright, and Bethany knows that very well. He might never be alright again. But still—

But still.

"I'll be fine," Alistair exhales all the air in his lungs. His skin is golden in the firelight, the lovely dark of his eyes the colour of well-aged Chasind mead. Bethany allows herself one minute to bury her face into his throat, if only because they both need the reassurance of it.

"I know you will," Bethany tells him, because she _does_ know he will. "Take Mal for me? I should go help Mother with the dishes."

Alistair chuckles and hoists their son up. "What do you think, Mal? You and me?"

Malcolm regards Alistair with the same solemn air he does everything, for a moment, only to nod and tuck his face beneath his father's chin.

Alistair is delighted by this turn of events, and cuddles Mal in closer to his chest. Malcolm is so like Marian, but he is _Bethany's_ child; it's never been in question, which of his parents Malcolm likes the best. The noise will eventually get to be too much for their son, but he'll be alright for now.

The minute he isn't, absolutely everyone will know it.

And it'll do Alistair some good, to hold their son. Bethany thinks that sometimes Alistair forgets that their children love him, too; that it's not just her, that she's not the entirely the centre of their world. She's their mother, but Alistair is their father, and that's equally as important.

It's much harder to forget that truth when a person's got a small squirming bundle of child in their arms, demanding to be paid attention to.

Bethany kisses Alistair's cheek high on the bone, and goes to help her mother clean up the detritus of their meal.

Ferelden fare is all thick, hearty stews and dense dark breads. It's wonderful in wintertime, and even now, in early autumn, it doesn't hurt to have such warm, filling food on hand. Mother had tea and cakes brought up, though Maker knows where she managed to procure the sugar from; sometimes it seems that there's always one woman in Bethany's life who defies every natural law of the world to get what she wants. Whether it's Marian or Mother only ever depends on who happens to be in the room.

But the tea and cakes are only one thing.

Bethany thinks of the other things, mostly: of Alistair, and the Grand Enchanter, and what it all means that Mother is here in the first place. She'd brought Orana and Bodahn and Sandal with her, never mind the fifty-some apprentices and the half-dozen young templars. She thinks of Kirkwall, and the Waking Sea in the sunlight, and how utterly far they've come from both those things. From one crisis to another; always in the thick of it, because _Marian_ had always been in the thick of it, and neither Alistair nor Bethany know any different.

Mother hadn't deigned to be part of the Inquisition when the world was ending for the rest of the world.

Only for Bethany.

"Mother," Bethany asks, so quietly that no one else can hear over the roar of the fire, and because she has to _know_. "Did you know?"

"Know what, dear?"

"About the Grand Enchanter."

"That she's Alistair's mother? Yes, dear, of course I did. That's half the reason I'm here."

Bethany freezes where she stands.

"I'm sorry," Bethany says, halting, hoping to the Maker that that simply came out wrong, and that it doesn't mean when Bethany _thinks_ it means. "Would you explain that?"

There is a difference between knowing and _knowing_. Bethany had told Alistair that her mother must have known, and she'd felt it in that moment, that acridly vicious shimmer of emotion far in the distance. It's close now, so close, but she still can't name it. She'd known, then, but she hadn't _known_.

Mother raises her eyebrows. "What's there to explain, darling?"

"You didn't tell me," Bethany says, carefully setting down a plate so that she doesn't accidentally drop it, lest it shatter. Worse, lest she _throw_ it. She keeps her voice forced low. "You didn't tell me, Mother! Or him!"

"Would there have been a point?" Mother asks, eyes climbing ever higher up her forehead.

"Yes, there would have!" Bethany hisses out through her teeth. There is a fine tremble to her hands. Leashed feeling ripples in the distance and she waits for it like a breeze seen and heard but not yet felt. "How _could_ you?!"

It comes like sunrise: fury.

Bethany is _furious_.

(Distantly, Bethany is glad that she set the plate down.)

"I don't see what you're so upset about," Mother says, casual. "I sent you to him, didn't I?"

"No," Bethany says, still trembling. "You wouldn't."

Because of course her mother wouldn't see anything wrong with it. Of course! Why on the Maker's green earth would there be anything wrong with not telling Alistair something that would only affect his entire life? What would be wrong with that, when it's only a lie of omission? What was wrong with sending Bethany herself to find Alistair, entirely unprepared for what she was going to be walking into? What was wrong with holding it close to her chest, even though she didn't have to? What was _wrong_ with allowing Bethany to, even unknowingly, dig that knife deeper into her husband's chest? What was wrong with pretending that it didn't even matter in the first place? What was wrong with saying _I don't see what you're so upset about_ , when the answer is _everything, Mother, absolutely everything_?!

Bethany breathes out, and the fire _snaps_. Too close, too close, the emotion feeding the flames, goblin greedy-guts reaching out to swallow them all alive.

She pushes it down.

 _Quiet restraint, Bethy_ , she hears her father say across the chasm of the years. He'd been holding lightning in his crackling palms, and the memory is lit lavender-sharp and sizzling. _It's not a race to the end_.

"Mother," Bethany says, "I am _so_ disappointed in you."

And Bethany turns away, leaves her mother standing there blinking, or whatever it is that parents do when they're told they've disheartened their youngest child to the depths of their bones, and goes to sit with Alistair and the children.

This is how they pass the rest of the evening:

The twins have invented a game. Varric whispers something to Liana and Carina has to say it aloud. It is, ostensibly, an attempt to force Carina to use her words, but what's it morphed into is Varric whispering to Lia, Lia and Rina blinking and frowning at one another, and then Lia opening her mouth to go "Rina says—"

Varric groans every time.

Malcolm, bless his heart, looks between his parents and says, "Mummy, come sit!"

As soon as Bethany is curled against Alistair's side, Malcolm scrambles down to go bother his sisters. He looks back at them imperiously only once, to be sure that neither of them look to be about to move.

"Not very subtle, is he?" Alistair murmurs in Bethany's ear, low and warm. It sends a pleasant shiver down her spine that dampers the rage, some. His gaze flicks over Bethany's shoulder, to where Mother is likely still standing. He frowns, a little. "Beth? Love? Everything alright?"

"I should be asking _you_ that, not the other way around," she says softly, so softly, dropping her head to his shoulder. Her hair is whorls of ink in the firelight against the cream of his shirt. Bethany thinks about paper, and writing, and letters, and all of the things that she's kept inside of her chest instead of saying them. Alistair's taught her to be better about that, but it's sometimes still hard. "I'll tell you later, but it's—I'm fine."

Alistair loops an arm around her shoulders, pulls her into his side and folds her in a little more securely. He presses his mouth to her temple. He's warm as sunshine, Bethany thinks, warm as a late Solace afternoon dripping gold, warm as every patched blanket she's ever loved. It's so easy to sink into it.

She wants to bury herself inside him, in the familiarity of his shoulders, the sweet old comfort of his chest, and Andraste, she could die there and it would be a terrible thing.

It would certainly be better than dying anywhere else, at any rate.

Bethany leans her head against Alistair's shoulder, and for minute, closes her eyes.

—

Varric is the first to realize that the evening has gone on too long.

(This may or may not be because the twins and their games have given him a headache. Bethany doesn't blame him at all, and doesn't bother to fight down the smile. Varric looks at her, and winks.)

"Well, Junior, I think we've overstayed our welcome."

"What—?" Carver says, squinting. He's been listening to Malcolm babble very serious nonsense for the last half hour, entirely enraptured. "I don't—"

Varric makes Significant Eyebrows at the way that Bethany and Alistair are draped all over one another with their hands twined, and Carver seems to get the message.

"I should probably get back," he mutters. "You, don't give your mum too much trouble while I'm gone, alright?"

Malcolm only grins, a little sleepy, a little droopy, and allows himself to be deposited into Bethany's waiting arms. Goodbyes are always such a time-consuming thing; Alistair and Carver speak lowly to one another at the door by the pile of boots, and Varric takes his time in detaching the twins from his sides.

Mother leaves the easiest, which is a good thing.

Bethany is still so angry with her.

She absolutely _refuses_ to say goodbye, and uses the excuse of the very sleepy little boy in her arms to duck out of having to be pleasant about it. Bethany kisses the top of Varric's head and then waits for Carver to bend down to offer his cheek, and then she trots right off towards the bedrooms, and doesn't allow herself to feel guilty at all.

If anyone ought to feel guilty, right now, it's Mother.

But she doesn't and so Bethany doesn't.

"Malcolm?" she asks, softly, when the door has creaked closed behind her. "Darling? Are you awake?"

He doesn't make a sound. A slight puff of air against her throat is her only answer. Oh, thank the Maker, her son is already asleep, lost to the Fade.

Bethany gets him down, pulls the covers up beneath his chin. For a moment, she just listens to him breathe.

It haunts her, sometimes, what he'd sounded like. The wet and the cold had done their part, but there is a deep-buried part of Bethany that will always blame herself; will always believe that if the Grand Enchanter hadn't been there, Malcolm would be dead.

Perhaps not even so deep-buried: the wet, sucking rattle of air through her son's lungs on that mountainside in the glittering snow will forever be the stuff of Bethany's worst nightmares.

He'd been so small, and so, so sick.

Her son sleeps easy, now, though. Bethany touches his head with sparkling fingers; wishes for good dreams, a banishment of horror and hex. A tiny barrier, just to let him rest.

Maybe it's a silly thing. Useless, even.

But Malcolm makes a quiet, happy burbling sound, the same one he'd always made as a baby, and Bethany's heart shatters in the cavern of her chest.

There is nothing in the world that Bethany loves more than her son.

And Maker, but it twinges like an old wound in the cold to leave him, even when she knows it shouldn't. He's in bed, and asleep, and _safe_ ; by all accounts, it shouldn't hurt. But it does. And it's a good twinge, somehow, besides, one that's painful only for how sweet it is.

Bethany slips out of the children's bedroom, closes the door behind her with a very quiet _click_.

Andraste, let him sleep sound for a while.

With the lullaby she'd grown up with still caught in her throat like a memory, Bethany steps into the slat of light pouring out of the crack in the door to the room where she sleeps. Alistair's voice is a smooth rise and fall, muffled and too indistinct from here to entirely make out.

But Bethany knows the sound of her husband's voice.

She peeks inside.

Alistair is stretched out on their bed, with a twin girl on his either side, a thickset book open heavy in his lap. He's _reading_ to them, a story spun of stained glass and wild farrows and rainbow light through babbling brooks; it's a book of old Ferelden fairy tales. Bethany doesn't even know where he managed to find it. Ferelden fairy tales aren't usually written down. It's easier to keep them alive, when they're only in people's heads.

"No one knows how many stories about Dane are true—"

"I'd rather hear Tyrdda again," Liana says, cutting him off with her cheek pillowed against his arm. "Rina likes that one better, too."

"Again?" Alistair crooks an eyebrow. "That'll be the third time this week, sweetheart."

"Tyrdda's the _best_ ," Liana says, and Carina nods fervently in agreement. "Please?"

"You're going to have to do better than that, sweetheart," Alistair says, reaching over to ruffle Liana's curls.

She squeals. "Father! Quit it! that's my _hair_!"

"You've got plenty of it," Alistair says, reasonably, grinning horribly at them both out of the corner of his mouth. He scrubs Lia's hair up into a waterfall of curls, until she looks more like a shaggy dog than anything else. "Look, see? It's everywhere!"

(Bethany's heart makes a pathetic little _wibbling_ sound.)

"Lia," says Carina, perked up over Alistair's prone body. She scowls very fiercely. "Stop! He's reading!"

"I'm telling Mother," Lia says, grumpily. " _She'll_ agree with me."

"Tell me what, Lia?" Bethany asks.

All three of them raise their heads as one, three mirrored sets of eyes all lighting up at the sight of her. Bethany's chest goes very tight. There is an intimacy in knowing, an intimacy to _wanting_ ; she stands in the space between door and frame, half in and half out, and could count the constellations in her daughters' freckles if she wanted to. Alistair, sandy-haired and the twins more ocher, but all three dark-eyed and delighted for her presence.

Her golden family. Her golden loves.

"Mother!" Liana trills, the squabble already forgotten. "Come listen, Father's going to read Tyrdda again!"

"I never said I was going to, Lia—" Alistair says, but backs right off at the fierce-eyed glare both of the twins turn on him. His mouth quirks into a grin. "Alright, never mind, Tyrdda, it is! Are you going to let your mother sit?"

There's a rash, mad scramble of movement.

Bethany watches, amused, as Lia and Rina silently argue over who has to move to allow their mother the requested space; Alistair ends the argument by sighing and bodily scooping Lia over, so that there's just enough space for Bethany to squeeze in.

It's nice, being slotted in between the solid breadth of Alistair's frame and the relative lightness of her eldest. Liana tucks herself beneath Bethany's arm. It takes a little while, but they all settle, eventually; Liana, Bethany, Alistair, Carina, more a pile of limbs than separate people, squished and squashed and so content with it, regardless.

And the easy roll of the story begins again.

Alistair, Bethany thinks, a tad bit dreamily, has a very nice voice.

He reads for a very long time, late into the night. Tyrdda turns into Flemeth turns into griffons, eventually, because both of the twins are particularly partial to griffons. _Alistair_ is partial to griffons, for that matter, and Bethany doesn't think there will ever be a day when he isn't willing to read stories about them. He's about to start another, but he goes still when Bethany touches his hand.

Oh, but the twins are asleep.

"Bedtime, I think," Alistair murmurs, when Carina lets out a little snore against his arm. Lia's out, too, extinguished candlelight. Both of their daughters are the same, in this.

It's an old habit, what they do next. Bethany shifts Lia up. Out as she is, Bethany's daughter is easy to pick up and carry, the dead weight of her curled into Bethany's arms. Alistair has Carina, and they work in tandem, just as they used to when the girls would crawl into bed with them and demand story-time.

Neither of the twins, thank the Maker, wake up with the movement.

Well.

Not entirely, anyway.

"Mmm—Mummy? 'Re we goin' somewher'…?"

"Just bed, Lia," Bethany murmurs into her daughter's curls. "Go back to sleep, darling, I've got you."

Liana makes another low, sleepy sound, and promptly drops back into the Fade. The innocence of it, the trust; her daughter is comfortable enough to fall right back into rest on command.

(Oh, Maker. Bethany loves her so much that she thinks she might die of it.)

But she and Alistair get the twins tucked into their beds, eventually, blankets and quilts pulled up high enough to chase out Skyhold's draughty cold walls. The autumn chill is just hovering on the edge of winter's true bite; they'll still be here come Satinalia, in all likelihood.

Bethany looks at her husband. Bites her lip. _What are we going to do?_ she thinks. _How are we going to make this something that we can_ do _?_

But she has no answers.

Neither of them say anything until they're back in their own bedroom, the dreamdark play of the fairy tales still lingering in the air. There are nighttime rituals between them; working out the knots in her curls, stripping away his armour, carefully not thinking about the Sword of Mercy that used to emblazon his armour. There's crawling into bed, and breathing the same air, and tipping her mouth up for a kiss. Little things, all.

Bethany leans against his side, fits herself into him just so.

Alistair lets her.

"Are you going to tell me what we need to be upset at your mother about, now?" he asks, crooking an eyebrow. Tease. "Od do I have to pretend to be interested in killing darkspawn some more?"

"You _are_ interested in killing darkspawn?"

"That's beside the point, love," Alistair grins, lopsided, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. He looks her over, taking stock. "What did she say? You were ready to fight a dragon."

Bethany huffs. "I was trying not to think about it."

"That bad?"

"She knew, Alistair," Bethany says. She tips her face up to look him in the eye. The sharp cut of his jaw is thrown into high relief in the firelight. She can't remember what it's like not to love him, she realizes; all of her is wrapped up in all of him, all of what he _is_. She reaches up to touch the side of his face. "She knew about the Grand Enchanter, and she didn't tell us."

"You did say she might," he says, lowly.

"That doesn't make it alright."

The easiness in his gaze vanishes. Bethany hates herself for it. In the same moment, they both move to gather one another close.

Bethany can't help the smile.

There's something very sweet about the fact that they both always aim to make the other feel better, and that they both always assume a physicality is likely to do it. She presses her face into Alistair chest and breathes, breathes. She loves being right where she is, tucked into him this close.

Maker, Bethany just wishes it was for any other reason than what it is.

Alistair exhales into her hair. "D'you know, sometimes I still think we ought to run off together? Take the twins and Mal and just—disappear into the Hinterlands. Everyone disappears into the Hinterlands, and no one ever comes out!"

"Silly," Bethany smiles, but only a little, because it's not as though she hasn't recently had that thought herself.

"I try."

For a long moment, they just hold one another.

"I'm terrified, Beth," Alistair whispers, finally, lowly. "I'm—you know that, don't you? I'm bloody well terrified."

"I know," she murmurs, cups a hand around the back of his neck. Would that she could wipe all of this away. But not even magic can help, and Bethany is all but hopeless, without her magic.

"What are we going to do?"

"What we have been, I suppose," Bethany tells him, softly. Alistair leans into her touch, and it's good, Bethany thinks it's good that she can ground him like this. Even if there's nothing else, there is that. "We just—keep living. What else is there?"

The chuckle slips out of Alistair's mouth golden-dark as the rest of him. "You do put things into perspective, don't you?"

Bethany smiles up at him, stands up on her toes to brush her mouth against his and says, like an echo:

"I try."

—

 _Dear Sonny,_

 _It's been so long, cousin. How are you? How's Nerry? Are she and Anders still in the Marsh? What's that like? Is it cold that close to the ocean, or is it like home? I'm sorry, I've been remiss; life's been busy, recently. Too busy._

 _To answer your question, no, I haven't. I don't think Alistair has, either; he sends his love, by the way, and apparently, I'm to tell you that Ser Cullen is more or less calmed down. He has a girlfriend, Alistair says, but he's still useless, and he thinks that the next time you see him, you ought to kick him in the shin. I think they're friends again, but—you know, I can't actually tell, anymore?_

 _I know thinks are probably still a mess where you are. They're a mess everywhere. I know it's a lot to ask, but if you've the chance, I could use a counterweight. Mother's decided to be a horror, and I don't want to give her the satisfaction._

 _I need a babysitter, Sonny, and Merrill hasn't written me back in a month._

 _(Have you heard from her? Maker, I know it's silly, but I'm starting to worry.)_

 _If you can't make it, that's fine. But if you can, I'll appreciate it forever. I can't put most of what's happened in a letter, Sister Nightingale would kill me. But you can bring Nerry and Anders, too, if you'd like. Honestly, I miss them._

 _I find myself missing a lot of things about Kirkwall._

 _Anyway, all that aside, I hope the walking trees have stopped giving you trouble,_

 _Love,_

 _Beth_

—

The irony is, it _would_ need to be something so entirely ridiculous to get Alistair to forgive Ser Cullen.

"I don't understand," says Ser Cullen.

"I don't understand what you don't understand," says Alistair, for probably the third time, and Alistair squints at Ser Cullen. "I've forgiven you."

Ser Cullen opens and closes his mouth like a fish.

"I don't understand," he settles on, again. "I do not understand."

Alistair throws his hands in the air.

Bethany decides to leave them to it.

Skyhold is a castle for wandering. There are all sorts of nooks and crannies to hide in, the heavyset old stone settling down the icy blow of the mountain wind, which makes it a little easier for an ordinary person to stand up on the battlements and not entirely freeze to death. Bethany makes her way up there, and goes to watch life in the castle pass her by. The market bustles far below, streams of people darting in and out. Smoke and laughter rise up from all around, the _clang_ of metal against metal from the training yards, the thin strains of the Chant from the chapel near the garden.

It's nice up here, Bethany thinks.

The wind sings so clean.

Bethany catches sight of a slim, dark-haired figured in faded blue robes leaving the mage tower, and makes a decision.

(This is unfair, Bethany knows. What she's about to do is unfair, and there is no pretending it is anything _but_. And yet—she has to. For Malcolm, she has to. Alistair may never forgive her; it may be something that stands between them for the rest of both their lives, but she has to. She has to.)

"Grand Enchanter?" Bethany calls. It wavers through the empty air. "Might I bother you?"

The Grand Enchanter pauses. From where she is standing, it's difficult to tell the look on the woman's face, but Bethany thinks that it might be a smile. The Grand Enchanter raises an arm in a wave, and Bethany thinks that that's as good as any permission she could ever get.

She hurries 'round the battlements, trying to catch up.

Grand Enchanter Fiona smiles a queer little smile. "Good afternoon, Lady Hawke."

"Thank you for waiting," Bethany huffs. She's a little unsteady; she has no idea what she's about to say, or even if she _should_ say it, but—

Maker's breath, what else _is_ there?

"I—" Bethany inhales courage as well as she can. "Hello Grand Enchanter, how are you? I know this might not—hm, that's not—I mean, good afternoon, I'm so sorry, but I know."

The Grand Enchanter tips her head. The wind whistles an old, sorrowful song. "Know, Lady Hawke?"

"I know you're Alistair's mother."

"Oh," says the Grand Enchanter, and for a moment, it is very quiet.

"Yes," says Bethany. "I—yes."

The colour drains entirely for the Grand Enchanter's face, leaving her white as paste. She is stark against the robin's egg of the sky, against the slate of the castle walls, so pale and drawn. She draws into herself, straightening a little, and it is the most awful thing Bethany has ever seen, the way everything about the Grand Enchanter turns sharp and frosted. "How did you—does 'e know?"

"He does," Bethany says.

A hundred emotions flash across the Grand Enchanter's face: shock into grief into sorrow into melancholy into fury into grief, again, then into horror into _fear_.

Oh, _fear_.

Bethany understands that if she doesn't say something right this minute, the Grand Enchanter will flee, and all of the pain of the last days will mean nothing.

"Please," Bethany says. "Don't leave."

Grand Enchanter Fiona closes her eyes for a split-second longer than a standard blink.

She exhales.

(Bethany thinks: _so raw a cool breeze smarts_.)

"I did not want him to know," the Grand Enchanter says, her voice hoarse around the words. What must it cost her, Bethany wonders, to say this now? To let it hurt like this? What must it cost? "I did not want—it was enough, to know 'e was happy."

"I know," says Bethany, and she—does, a little, she does recognize it. Not enough, not nearly enough to pretend that she understands what drove the woman before her to leave her child with someone else, but—

A little, all the same.

A little is enough, because a little is enough to allow Bethany to ask, for Malcolm.

"I don't know how Alistair feels about it—" Bethany says. _About you_ , she doesn't, "—but Grand Enchanter, I—Malcolm adores you. I know it's not ideal, but please don't take that away from him."

 _My son doesn't adore anyone_ , Bethany doesn't say, again, even though she wants to. _Please don't make me explain how alone he is. He's my baby_.

The Grand Enchanter crooks an eyebrow, the expression almost comically similar to Alistair's. Bethany has no idea how she missed it; the resemblance is there, glaring with it.

Maybe she just wasn't looking for it.

"You would prefer I stay?"

Bethany nods fast, too fast. Her curls snake into her mouth. "I don't want anything to change. You love him already, and he—he needs people who aren't me, and—" she breaks off, tremors in the hands. "You're so good for him, Grand Enchanter. I know it's selfish, but please, for Mal's sake. Stay."

And not just Malcolm's sake, though Bethany will never admit it.

Alistair needs it, too.

(Alistair also just needs more _time_.)

The Grand Enchanter looks at Bethany for a very long moment. There's no artifice to it; it is a passive thing, an observation and nothing more.

"You are not much like your mother, Lady Hawke," the Grand Enchanter says.

"And thank the Maker for that," Bethany says, the words escaping her before she'd quite realized what she's saying. "She's—thank the Maker for that."

"Oh?"

"She's my mother," Bethany says. The word _mother_ feels like blood on broken glass. "And right now, I'm furious at her."

(The truth of the matter is that Bethany doesn't know if she'll ever be able to forgive her mother for this. It's Marian leaving Carver in the Deep Roads all over again, isn't it, because it's such a betrayal, and after everything—after _everything_ —Bethany had thought that her mother would have known better. It hurts as fierce as a hole in the lung, and it makes no difference that she'd sent Bethany to Alistair. Mother had stayed silent, and the damage is done.)

The Grand Enchanter seems to understand. She eyes are very sad. "We are always disappointing the people who matter most, yes?"

"As parents and as children," Bethany replies.

Yes, disappointment, always disappointment. Andraste, but all she wants is to do right by her children. She knows that there are times she could have been better; been kinder, been more understanding, listened a little closer. But it's being a person and it's hard, for all that it's a necessity.

Bethany loves her children.

And so she tries.

"…Does he hate me?" the Grand Enchanter asks. She ties her hands into knots for the question, hunching against the answer as though it'll somehow make it hurt less if she's guarded against it, whichever way it goes. Flesh and blood and bone, trembling in the wind, begging for compassion for this shattered, shimmering thing.

Andraste, but Bethany doesn't want to lie.

"I don't know," says Bethany, and sighs like every broken heart. "I wish I did."

—

"Did you have a good talk with Ser Cullen?" Bethany asks, later, when the fire has burned low and they're alone, again. The twins have been put to bed, evemeal has been sequestered away, and no one is looking for either of them.

They have a little time.

"It took him half an hour to stop saying 'I don't understand'," says Alistair, snorting out a laugh through his nose. "We got there eventually, though."

"Mmm," Bethany hums. "I'm glad."

"I noticed _you_ disappeared," he says, grinning out of the corner of his mouth. Alistair knows that she thinks it's a thing long overdue, the reconciliation. He kisses her shoulder like an afterthought. "Where did you go?"

Maker, there is no universe where Bethany knows how to lie to him.

"Don't be angry with me," she says, biting at her lip.

"What? Why?"

"I went to talk to the Grand Enchanter," Bethany says.

He freezes. "…Why?"

"Mal," says Bethany. Alistair hasn't moved away, but as she says their son's name, she watches the change work its way over him. He loves Malcolm as much as Bethany does, and he knows just how difficult their son can be; better, in some ways.

"Ah," he says.

"I asked her to stay," Bethany says, teeth still sunk into the plush of her bottom lip, so quiet. "After I said—she was going to leave, if I hadn't. And I'm sorry—" she raises her gaze to his, "—but I had to."

Alistair moves slowly. So, so slowly.

But Andraste, he tangles his fingers in her curls.

"I'm not angry," Alistair says, lowly, tugging gently in that way he does when he's trying to calm himself down. He shakes his head when she makes a tiny sound. "Don't make that face, Beth, I mean it. I'm not."

Bethany continues to make that face. "But?"

"But nothing," Alistair says. "I'm not angry. I'd rather Mal be happy. You know that, love."

Bethany keeps biting at her lip, gnawing down until it aches red and tender. "Are you sure?"

Alistair grins at her, lopsided, but it—touches his eyes, some. "As sure as I ever am, Beth. S'pose that's not saying much, but it is what it is. I'm not upset."

There's a hesitance to the way she curls closer, but only for a moment.

Alistair catches the strangeness, and clicks his tongue. "Quit that, would you? You did what's best. I'd expect nothing less, love."

Bethany slumps into his chest. "I really am sorry."

"Don't be," Alistair murmurs. He returns to twining her curls around his fingertips, a gentle scrape that sends silver shivers shadow-tender all along her spine. "I mean it, Beth, don't."

They stay like that for a while, just like that, until even the embers have gone out and there's nothing left but ashes.

"…Do you hate her?" Bethany asks, in the dark and the quiet. It's a strange echo, one that she's not entirely sure she's entitled to. She thinks of the Grand Enchanter, of the cringe on her face as she'd asked, _forced_ herself to ask, a question that Bethany had had no answer for.

"I don't think so," Alistair says, after a moment. "Why?"

"She wanted to know," Bethany murmurs.

"Did she."

"Mhmm," she nods into his chest. It feels, oddly, like an omission; there's more to it than only the Grand Enchanter, but there always is, isn't there? Bethany holds her courage softly, like a flower in her mouth, and tries again. "She did. And—I suppose, in a way, so did I."

Alistair strokes a hand down the length of her curls, soothing, sorrow, strange and sweet. He doesn't say anything. Maybe he doesn't need to.

Bethany sighs, kisses his chest.

Maybe she doesn't need to say anything, either.

—

.

.

.

.

.

 _tbc_.


	9. silence as a beating heart

**disclaimer** : disclaimed  
 **dedication** : to kirkwall. i've scrawled you across my ribs, and i wear you with acceptance and with grief and with dumbass monkeybrain pride.  
 **notes** : _above the clouds of pompeii_ – bear's den.

 **title** : silence as a beating heart  
 **summary** : There is a new Commander in Haven. — templar!au part ii; Alistair/Bethany.

—

.

.

.

.

.

Alistair and Ser Cullen do not often condescend to work at the table in the Hawke quarters.

To eat, yes, and to mutter ungratefully at one another. To play with the twins and Mal, to unclench their fists at the end of the day, to snicker and laugh and shove one another about; a consolation or maybe just a comedown. It's not a place where they sit with maps spread out, dark looks on both of their faces, two days worth of stubble and the entire weight of all the worlds on their shoulders.

Bethany lingers in the doorway, fingers pressed against the frame, and blinks at them both.

"Is—is everything all right?" she asks, hesitant.

Alistair jerks his head up, visceral relief flashing across his face at the sight of her.

" _There_ you are," he says, breaking out into a grin. "Come here, would you? I want your opinion, love."

"She's only going to agree with you," Ser Cullen says, voice sour.

"Are you going to just agree with me, Beth?"

"What am I agreeing _to_?" Bethany asks, tipping her head. The maps across the table are of—the Emerald Graves? Maybe? Eastern Orlais, anyway, and that becomes more apparent as she moves closer to look at the maps proper; the Dales are the map's highlight right in the center, but it sprawls across the Emprise du Lion and the Exalted Plains, Jader at the very edge and Val Royeaux in the top-right corner. They've scribbled over it in charcoal and red ink, which arguably makes telling what they're on about far harder than it needs to be.

"Nothing, there's no agreeing. I just want to see what you think!"

Alistair is a terrible liar. He absolutely _does_ want her to agree with him; Bethany would do, except that she has no idea what she'd be agreeing to, and much as she loves the man, Alistair does have something of a score to settle.

"What are all the red marks?" Bethany asks.

"Lyrium," Alistair says. "Smugglers are a cross; deposits are a circle."

"Oh," says Bethany, blinking, a little startled. There are a _lot_ of circles. "Oh, that's—that's not good."

"That's what _I_ said," Alistair says, not the littlest bit smug. "I think—"

"Your husband thinks we ought to send the Inquisitor to the source," Ser Cullen cuts him off, clipped and stiffer than he perhaps meant to come off. "It would be easier to deal with it ourselves."

"Yes, because charging into a nest of red templars without half an army behind us is _such_ an excellent idea," Alistair snaps, sharp and sarcastic, clenched tight between his teeth. "Best idea you've had in years, I'm sure!"

"I am _trying_ to take responsibility for—"

"Why?! How was this our fault?!"

"We should have been _better_ ," Ser Cullen says, bloodless in the face. His mouth is a severe white line, a little endless death.

"We weren't the whole bloody Order!" Alistair retorts. Something flares in his face: Kirkwall, and lyrium, and old carmine-coloured fear. Bethany still remembers the way the shadows had sunk in, slinking their long, Gallows-shaped claws over Alistair's face, and how the smeary lines beneath his eyes had become so, so deep. How he'd carried those giant statues between his shoulders, how he'd worn his guilt every time he'd touched her, then, hating himself for it even as he'd craved the absolution.

Alistair hadn't craved the lyrium.

He'd craved forgiveness, instead.

Maker, the Gallows hadn't been easy, ever, but they'd been worse for Alistair. Between Bethany herself, and then Carina and then _Mal_ , eventually, the Gallows had been especially, _especially_ awful for Alistair.

And now with the Grand Enchanter, and things as they are—

No.

It's always been worse, for Alistair.

Bethany touches his elbow.

Alistair relaxes beneath her hands, leans into her with a relief so palpable it borders on obscene. She wants to rub away the stress that's settled between his eyebrows, but she doesn't know how. Healing doesn't help unhappiness.

And Bethany was never very good at healing, anyway.

She looks at the maps again, instead, counting. Alistair stays close, his palm curling at her hip as though he's aiming to steady her, but Bethany isn't the one who needs steadying, and they both know. Shadows and fears; he needs to believe in love more than anything else in the world. Beneath the unjudgmental wood of the table, she twines their hands.

And then she returns to counting.

Andraste's _knickers_ , Bethany thinks. That is a _lot_ of red lyrium.

(Varric must be having a _fit_.)

"You know, I think you're both right," Bethany says, slowly, frowning a little.

"See, she—hold on, what?" Alistair has to cut himself off to gape at her. "Beth, love, no. Tell me you didn't just say _both_ of us. You're supposed to agree with me!"

Bethany lifts her shoulders, a little like an apology. "It makes the most sense?"

" _Why_?"

"Because you're right," Bethany says. "It's not—there was nothing you could have done. It wasn't— it wasn't your fault, either of you! But…"

"But?"

"But my sister was involved, too," she says, so softly. Bethany turns her face into his chest for a hard swallow of a moment. "And it would be just like her, wouldn't it, to leave us to clean up her mess."

Alistair laughs without humour. Ser Cullen's misery is frozen in his face.

Bethany thinks that sometimes they both forget that none of this, none of it at all, could ever have come down to one person. There was always, always, always too much going on for it to only have come down to one person.

But if it could, it would come down to the Champion of Kirkwall.

( _Truth_ , Bethany remembers, _is always better when it's silent_.)

She keeps her head down to her husband's chest, and shrugs again. "Am I wrong?"

A beat where breathing is impossible.

Alistair and Ser Cullen must look at one another, and then they both must look at Bethany.

"Beth…" Alistair says, breaking through it very quietly. Just her name. It sounds like it hurts, and Bethany's teeth press down into her lip. He squeezes her fingers; they ache for one another, as they always have.

"You're both right," Bethany says again. "We need to deal with it ourselves, but we shouldn't do it alone. Didn't we learn anything from Kirkwall?"

Ser Cullen's shoulders go down; Bethany raises her head to watch the fight drain out of him as Alistair slumps back into his chair, and then over into her side. His weight is warm against her, heavy as the familiar comfort of an old quilt. They've all been here before, and they'll all be here again. Bethany slides down into Alistair's lap in the crevice between the table's edge and the barrel of his chest, and leans back against him.

"Go on, then, tell us where we're wrong," Alistair murmurs. His arms come up to curl around her waist, his mouth at the nape of her neck. "You might as well."

"I'm no warrior, I don't know strategy," Bethany answers him, archly. "That's your job!"

Ser Cullen _snorts_ unattractively. "She has you there, you know."

"You shut up," Alistair says flatly at Ser Cullen, for all that his arms curl a little tighter around Bethany's waist to make sure that she doesn't go away anywhere. She can feel the fine tremble to him, the way his fingers bite shaking into her side.

He's not best pleased with this whole thing, is he?

Bethany tips her head back just enough to kiss her husband's face. It's an awkward angle, crooked, a kink already forming in her neck as she brushes her lips to the soft flesh beneath his jaw. His skin tastes of salt and sweat, cold metal, seawater but faintly sweet.

Alistair goes lax beneath the touch.

Bethany can feel the way he grins when he dips down to kiss her back.

"Must you two do that?" Ser Cullen asks, despairingly, from what sounds like very far off. It takes effort to pull away from Alistair's mouth. But Bethany manages it, only to find that Ser Cullen is concentrating very hard on the maps, red all the way to the tips of his ears. "I am _trying_ to work."

"Mm," hums Alistair, a little muzzily into Bethany's curls. "Yes, we must. Can you imagine if we didn't, Beth? We'd have to be _proper_!"

"You might also get something done," Ser Cullen says, flatly.

"Or better, _you_ might," Bethany says, and only smiles at the deeply horrified look of betrayal Ser Cullen sends her way.

"The shrine is here," Ser Cullen says, grouchy, pointing at a spot on the map just north of Jader, ignoring Bethany and Alistair entirely, which is probably in his best interests right now. "It'll take us three days to get there, even if we hurry."

"They'll know we're coming," Alistair says, slowly. He glances down at Bethany, measuring. "We've caused them enough grief for it."

"Which is why we ought to go _now_ ," says Ser Cullen, perhaps a little more sharply than he'd intended to, because he colours faintly red and drops his tone to something hoarse and rumbling, tinged with shame. "Quit looking at me like that. We should."

"We _should_ talk to Lady Lavellan," Bethany says. Alistair walks his fingers up her thigh, grins into her neck. They both know very well that Ser Cullen won't fight her on this, which is precisely why it's better that it comes from Bethany herself: Marian Hawke is _her_ sister, after all, and in this, as in all things that involve the Champion of Kirkwall, Ser Cullen is willing to defer.

Bethany pauses, thinks about it, adds, "And maybe Lady Evelyn, too."

Ser Cullen sputters. "Lady—what? No! Why? She's not—she shouldn't— _no_!"

"I can't be in two places at once, Cullen," Bethany tells him, terribly, brutally gentle. "We need another mage. Lady Evelyn's as good as any."

There are many things she could add to this. _Lady Evelyn deserves to understand what you are_ and _you need a mage at your back_ and, worst of all, _I'm not sorry, but I'll always put Alistair first_.

Little cruelties, all. The hang in the air, shimmering between the three of them like sunlight caught on broken glass.

"And you like her," adds Alistair, which entirely ruins any pretense that Bethany might have had at a legitimate argument. "There's that, too."

(Under the cover of a renewed round of Ser Cullen sputtering and choking, Bethany jams her elbow into Alistair's side, and he huffs a laugh. Bethany thinks that neither of them are ever going to grow up, and it curls up warm in the centre of her chest. _Incorrigible_ , really.)

It takes a bit, but Ser Cullen ends up mostly looking resigned to the ribbing.

This is actually an improvement over the sputtering! Maker, at least he's not denying it anymore; it's much healthier that he doesn't, especially when Lady Evelyn so clearly returns the regard.

"I will—ask her," Ser Cullen says, haltingly. His cheeks are ruddy. "She may say no, but I—I will ask."

Bethany doesn't think that Lady Evelyn would say _no_ if her life depended on it. Skyhold's rumour mill turns on Lady Lavellan and her apostate, swooning of the romances of their various hangers-on; it'll be a frigid day in the void before Lady Evelyn won't grab at an opportunity to spend time with Ser Cullen without the castle's ever-present eyes on the back of her neck.

At least, Bethany assumes as much. Certainly, she would, if it were her.

Thankfully, the very-married Commander and his wife are of very little interest to Skyhold's gossips, and so it doesn't entirely apply as far as Bethany is concerned. They had been, at the start; she the Champion's mage sister and he an ex-templar, they'd fed the stories for weeks, until most folk had realized that Alistair and Bethany are not, in truth, that scandalous at all. Once they'd realized that there were children and titles and all the boring bits of married life involved, they did rather go away. A relief when it finally happened, thank Andraste.

Ser Cullen and Lady Evelyn, however, are another story entirely. If he says he'll ask, Bethany will hold him to it, and she'll leave it alone for now.

And so, this is how Bethany finds herself packing frenetically the next few days, and clinging to her children besides. The Shrine of Dumat is only a fraction of the distance of Adamant, but—three days in travel one way is still three days in travel one way. The twins seem to grow on inch with every sunrise; it feels as though Bethany is letting out the skirts every second day just to keep up. She tries very desperately to refrain from thinking about this, as it's often immediately followed by a round of fresh tears the second she's on her own, which is both ridiculous and entirely unhelpful.

Liana, as always, manages to put it in perspective.

" _Mother_ ," Bethany's daughter says, sighs, with that particular brand of youthful exasperation that truly loved children come by so honestly. Lia rolls her eyes so hard they're likely to roll right out of her head. "Uncle Cullen doesn't think _anything_ through. He's worse than Aunt Mari! If you don't go, then only Father will, and then they'll _both_ get killed!"

"And Gran will yell," adds Carina.

"And Gran will yell," Liana echoes the sentiment, nods matter-of-factly. "She's worse than Sandal when she yells."

"Enchantment," Carina sagely agrees.

(Andraste, sometimes it's like they speak their own language.)

Bethany raises her eyebrows at the twins. They're growing up so fast, but they're still old-gold-haired and dark-eyed, Alistair's crooked sense of humour and Bethany's own smiling mouth.

"Will you look after Mal for me, while I'm gone?" she asks them.

The twins glance at one another, and then they glance at Bethany, and then back again. There's a calculated moment of silence between them, the mental twin-talk that gives Varric such grief when they've decided to go bother him.

In perfect tandem, her daughters shrug.

"We've been over this, Mother, I know we have," Liana says, very patiently for a nine-year-old. "We don't look after Mal. He looks after us!"

—

Jader is a bustling city that they pass only the outskirts of, on their way north.

Lady Lavellan sits astride her horse at the front, her gaze far away and her mind obviously elsewhere, speaking only when spoken to. Alistair and Ser Cullen glower at one another, because they've not settled their little tiff, and Varric needles the Inquisitor's apostate and Lady Evelyn and Seeker Pentaghast every chance he gets because he's Varric, and needling people is what Varric _does_.

It's the only little bit of normalcy that they have, and Bethany is so, so grateful for it.

Three days travel seems like nothing, but the days stretch long and unending before them, the crackle of their nightly fires the only break in the stillness. This is not a journey that any of them particularly _want_ to be on.

Bethany leans against Alistair, tired in her soul.

"It's never going to end," she murmurs. "Is it?"

"No," says Alistair. He presses his mouth to the top of her head. "I don't think so."

Midday at noon, it emerges from the haze over the horizon like a dream.

The Shrine of Dumat is a shock of memory of the system, so similarly-built to Kirkwall that Bethany nearly has to do a double-take. It's in the construction, the blistering way the sunlight refracts white and burning from the trees, the rustle of wind through leaves.

It's Hightown all over again. It's even on fire!

(Oddly, a wash of nostalgic _fondness_ for the long-gone home rolls over Bethany. The Shrine's white stone makes her think of Hightown, and fire always makes her think of Marian; Bethany's older sister would hate this place, or just to be contrary she'd love it, but there's be nothing neutral about it, regardless. It's beautiful and it's horrible and it's just like being home, again.)

Alistair is clearly thinking along the same lines. His knuckles are white around the hilt of his sword, shield held loosely at his side, staring up at the ancient monstrosity of Tevene architecture with a mixture of annoyance and respect writ into his shoulders.

"Stay behind me, would you?" he asks, quietly. Panic, tight at the throat.

"What makes you think I wouldn't?"

"Beth, please."

Physicality reassures Alistair the way very little else does, and so Bethany touches his elbow. She smiles when he looks down at her. "It's going to be alright, you know."

"It's not us I'm worried about," Alistair mutters. He shoots a very significant glance in Ser Cullen's general direction; their old friend spent the entire journey twisting himself into knots over what was ahead and what was behind, and desperately trying not to moon too obviously at Lady Evelyn when she wasn't looking.

Which didn't work, by-the-by; the mooning had been almost painfully obvious to anyone with a working set of eyes, and likely even some that didn't. The only person it _wasn't_ entirely plain to was Lady Evelyn herself, which is entirely ironic.

Ser Cullen is worse than _Alistair_.

(Bethany is probably a terrible person for finding it so funny, but it is what it is.)

She curls her palm into the crook of Alistair's arm. The magic in her chest _purrs_ , rises to her fingertips warm and gold and flittering. She thinks of barriers, and the foundries, and Liana and Carina and Mal.

The Shrine of Dumat burns around them.

" _Shit_ ," says Varric, which does sum it up rather nicely.

The air hums. It is a vicious, visceral reminder of the ritual tower in the Western Approach, and Bethany shudders and yanks her robes tighter around her frame. Lady Lavellan carries herself with the grim determination of a woman going to her own death. Ser Cullen is faintly green.

 _Perhaps we_ should _have done this on our own_ , Bethany muses.

The thought is cut off by the wrenching _screech_ of a lyrium horror. Its skin _bubbles_ , shards of red lyrium breaching its surface, howling, painful misery in its jaws.

Bethany swings her stave up—

Ice, fire, lightning. The whirl of magic gulps down Bethany's mana is great greedy gulps. She pins an archer with a horrible red grin to the ground, buries his head in the dirt and holds him there until he ceases scrabbling, until he ceases to move at all.

The old forms come back so easily. Bethany finds herself with Alistair at her back and Varric to her left, firing off bolts of spirit energy every which way.

"Just like old times, huh, Death Wish?" Varric laughs.

"Why do you _call_ me that?" Alistair shouts over clang of steel. "I don't have a death wish!"

"You kinda do, though—"

"Maybe now isn't the time to argue this?" Bethany manages to get out. "Alistair, behind you—!"

Claws hiss through the air. The lyrium horror _keens_ , wild, victorious triumph.

It's only to run him through. Bethany can't her hands up fast enough, can't remember the right words for the barrier, _can't_ —

Only for Lady Evelyn to slice the thing neatly in two with a blade made of glittering-gold spectral energy, panting heavily with a wide grin on her mouth for a sheer split-second before dashing off to go rescue Lady Lavellan's apostate. He's in a right state, and Bethany swallows a tiny laugh; his robes are faintly smoking. Andraste, he won't be the first to set himself on fire, and he won't be the last, but it's a second of levity sorely needed.

Because Alistair is bleeding.

"Oh, Andraste, are you alright?!"

"Just my shoulder, don't worry about it," Alistair mutters, but his face is white with pain.

"What would you do if I wasn't here?" Bethany says under her breath. Barrier forgotten between her teeth, she has to struggle for the healing. It's there, it's there, it has to be there, she needs it to be there, _Alistair_ needs it to be there because he's losing blood, and—

Alistair winces. "Die, probably?"

"Please don't do that to me!" Bethany squeaks, ducking down, frantically trying to avoid straying into the eyeline of the templars patrolling the walls. They're not overmuch for sense, templars; they're not overmuch for anything. Templar is as templar does, even when the lyrium they guzzle glints red.

Bethany's mental grasp closes tight around the magic.

It struggles.

And it submits.

Healing blooms from Bethany's hands blue-green, sinking into Alistair's torn side. The skin knits closed, or at least the bleeding stops. The blood beneath her hands is warm and tacky against his armour and her fingers, which is horrible, actually. She frowns at her husband's shoulder in the sunlight, an image of one of the lyrium horrors still fresh in her mind's eye.

She wants to ask if Alistair ever wonders if any of these men were people that he might have known, once. But it's a cruel, pointless question, and so Bethany puts it away. She can ask him all sorts of questions when they get back to Skyhold.

Alistair tips his head up to look at her. For one moment, it's like everything freezes; time itself slows down to a tiny, strange instant of suspended peace in the middle of a firefight.

"Better?" Bethany asks, softly.

"Yeah," Alistair says. His eyes are soft. "Thanks. C'mon, love, breathe. Just think, it could be dragons!"

Like a ripple, Bethany hears: _now there'll be dragons for sure_.

They help each other back into standing. The courtyard is clear, now; one of the red-dyed tents has caught fire. With the wind blowing the way it is, it won't be long before the entire structure catches. The Shrine's mouth is a dark gaping maw.

It makes Bethany think of dragon's teeth. They're going to have to go in there.

 _Maker, please. Let it be alright_.

She takes a slow deep breath, and follows Alistair and Ser Cullen and the rest inside.

Flames lick along the walls of the Shrine, the crackle of burning wood muted by the thick blanket of smoke. The light here is strange and blistering, half head and half fadewalk iridescence. Dragon statues with their open maws and their shining claws scream silently along the walls, metal snarls backlit by the fire. Alistair sweeps away the whistle of an arrow past his cheek with a scowl.

Neither magic nor steel makes quick work of the lyrium horrors. They're hardy as normal people aren't. Bethany itches to cast a barrier around him until the whole place is ash and dust, because then, at least, he won't be hurt.

Another arrows whistles by, _thuds_ deep into the burning wood behind them.

An inch to the left, and it would have taken Alistair's eye out.

" _Shite_ ," Alistair snarls, with feeling. "Get _down_ , Beth!"

(If Bethany never sees another red-soaked lyrium horror in her life, it will be too soon.)

They fight their way into the crimson beating heart of the Shrine. Bethany shakes, just a little: fear and exhaustion and wanting to go _home_. Alistair isn't much better. He hovers close to her side, glowering at the giant Sword of Mercy splashed in brilliant bloody scarlet along the far wall.

Red lyrium grows around them, out of the ground, hot as glowing coals and a hundred times more eerie. It sings. Varric was right. It _sings_.

And then—

Then they find the man called Maddox.

Bethany had never known him.

But she can't forget the day that Alistair had come back to the little house above the foundries, stripped his armour off, and wrapped her up so tightly in his arms that she'd barely been able to breathe. He'd whispered it into her hair: one of the templars thrown out of the Order for smuggling letters between a mage called Maddox and his sweetheart outside of the Gallows.

The templar had been thrown from the Order.

The mage had been made Tranquil.

It's not a very difficult question, who got the short end of _that_ stick.

Alistair had come home, and come home, and come home for days afterwards, unable to speak, only ever able to keep her pressed into his chest as though if he didn't, she might have disappeared. He'd drawn spirals on her shoulders, trying to calm himself down.

Bethany never knew Maddox.

He'd been a part of her life, regardless.

(She holds the word in her mouth, every so often. _Tranquil_. It tastes like nothing. And she does mean _nothing_ : it tastes like faintly stale air, like the first few moments after a Cleans, like a dryness that not even an ocean could quench. It tastes like nothing. It tastes like nothing at all.)

He's propped against the base of a burning statue, a pale man covered over in freckles, mouse-brown hair cropped very close to his skull. His eyes are pale blue and clouded over, lifeless.

Somehow, Bethany doesn't think he has very long.

"I am sorry, Knight-Commander Cullen," Maddox says, in the even, carefully-enunciated tones of the Tranquil. "We stayed behind, to give Samson the chance to escape."

Ser Cullen is white as paste.

"You didn't have to—" he starts.

"We did," says Maddox. Andraste, but he's just a boy, younger than Lady Lavellan, likely. His eyes are vacant.

"Why?" Ser Cullen asks, and it's a shattered thing held ginger in his jaws. Alistair's palm bites into Bethany's side; she's not the only one left trembling. There are layers, here, things that she doesn't understand.

Old hurts, the kind that not even a good healer can whisper away.

"Alistair—" Bethany murmurs.

Her husband only shakes his head. No words and no sound, save for the crackle of the fire and Ser Cullen's ragged breathing. The boy is dying.

(Bethany tries not to think about what death in Tranquility would be like. She swallows hard, the thought sticking up her throat. Cut off from the Fade as they are, barely alive, barely _human_ —Maker's breath, it's the slow paralysis of a nightmare. Maybe it's freedom of a sort; an end, after all things, but somehow, Bethany doesn't think so.)

There will be nothing left of this place. It's coming to pieces around them, already.

Ser Cullen straightens up. His voice is rough. "We ought to look around. There's got to be something left, they can't have got rid of all of it.

The fire hasn't reached this deep into the Shrine, and the only light comes from the pillars of red lyrium bursting from the ground. The power of the place is sick carmine, silvery in the sunlight, palpably hungry for a fresh sacrifice. Metal glints in the corners, lyrium bottles empty and licked clean, scattered across a table in the middle of room amongst papers scribbled over in bold, slanted writing. Lady Lavellan holds one of the notes up, tips her head.

"It's for you," she says, voice neutral, and offers it to Ser Cullen.

" _Drink enough lyrium, and it revels the truth. The Chantry used us; you're fighting the wrong battle—_ I'm not reading the rest of this. It's rubbish."

"Breathe, mate," Alistair advises. It sounds, Bethany thinks, awful sympathy in her throat, like he's talking to himself; Alistair's knuckles are starkly white around the hilt of his sword. The bare skin is strange. Bethany could count his freckles.

Bethany touches his elbow, instead, and watches as something relaxes infinitesimally in his face.

(Andraste's burning pyre, she cares about him so much she could die of it.)

There are other things, too: tools half-ruined by fire and more letters, each one worse than the last; and slowly, slowly the encroaching hungry grasp of the burning. Bethany pays all of this very little attention—the colour has all left Alistair's face. Her golden man, wan and ashy instead.

"Are you alright?" she asks him, quietly under her breath when no one is looking.

"I will be," Alistair mutters. "As soon as we're out of here."

 _Don't get hurt_ , he doesn't say, but he doesn't need to. If they weren't where they are, Bethany would curl her hands around his face and kiss him quiet.

Even as it is, she's half a mind to do it, regardless.

Alistair never ought to look like this, as though he's been cracked open and had all his insides removed. He never ought to look as though he's been left to bleed.

Kirkwall, Bethany knows, was exactly like that, too.

She tucks herself into Alistair's side, and hopes it's enough.

(It doesn't feel like enough, but it might have to be. For now. It might have to be enough, _for now_.)

Lady Evelyn is clearly the same. The woman hovers at Ser Cullen's shoulder, flinching back from touching him the same way that Bethany used to flinch back from allowing herself to talk to Alistair when she thought he needed it, when that was still something she worried about. The gesture and the hesitance are a cracked mirror.

Bethany catches her gaze, offers her a smile.

 _You'll get through it_ , she tries to say. _Even if it's hard_.

And oh, it will be hard.

Ser Cullen is, unfortunately, far more deeply damaged than Alistair had been.

"We ought to build him a pyre," says Ser Cullen.

"Outside," says Alistair. "This is no place to go to the Maker's side."

Ser Cullen swallows hard.

Nods.

They leave the Shrine of Dumat falling to pieces and silent as a tomb, gone up in smoke. There's nothing left here alive. There is only a grave for a dead god, and the skeletons of the people left in the crush.

It is, somehow, entirely fitting.

—

The moon hangs low in the sky when they finally make it back to Ferelden borders.

It's been a very long trip. Bethany is so tired she nearly falls off her mare for the second time that evening; after she manages to set herself straight, Alistair ruins it entirely by stopping and manhandling her up to sit in front of him, and now he has a tight grip on the reins with his arms around her waist, and thank Andraste for that. And it's not like anyone around is doing much better, either. Ser Cullen is pale and drawn, and both Lady Lavellan and Lady Evelyn look as though they'd rather be in bed and asleep. Even Varric's gone quiet, and the Lady Seeker, and everyone else besides.

"Keep your eyes open a little longer, Beth," Alistair murmurs in her ear, too low for anyone else to hear. "We're almost back."

"You said that an hour ago," Bethany reminds him sleepily.

"I meant it an hour ago, too," he says, laughing so softly into her hair. "We're already into the mountains."

"Only a hundred mountains left to climb, and then we'll be home," Bethany finishes the sentence for him.

Alistair hums pleased agreement at her temple. lips vibrating warm against her skin. Bethany allows herself to lean back into his chest, because that's always what she's done. This is love, as she understands it: Alistair holding her through the roll of the outside world, solid and heady and warm as a patch of afternoon sunshine, always placing himself between Bethany and whatever pointy as might come her way.

She remembers him the night of the Qunari rampages, and the way he'd been ready to go find her sister on his own because he hadn't wanted her to have to leave the children. It's just what Alistair _does_ ; he doesn't know how to ask her to be unhappy on his account, and every time she tries to compromise herself for it, he only shakes his head and takes the grief away from her.

There will never be a day that Bethany knows how to thank for always being willing to carry that weight.

Maker, she loves him.

It's all that she knows how to do.

For a long moment it's silent, save for the huff of breath into clouds in the cold and the _clop-clop_ of hooves against stone. Bethany drops her head back over the sharp cut of Alistair's shoulder, stares up at the unfurled velvet blanket of the night sky.

"Look," she murmurs. "Bellitanus. She's right above us."

Alistair glances upwards. There's the ghost of a crooked grin in his voice. "You have her hair, did you know."

Bethany breathes a laugh. "Says the man who keeps his face in it when he sleeps."

"I never said it was a _bad_ thing, love—"

"Draconis," Bethany says, ignoring this excuse completely, because acknowledging it will only feed fuel to whatever fire Alistair is currently gleefully stoking. She sketches out the lines between the stars, the snakey back and forth of the tail, the streaks of the wings, the hungry gaping mouth. Marian killed a dragon once, but Bethany never did. She'd not have been much help, even if she had been there to try.

Bethany knows what she is, and what she is, is only marginally capable.

"Judex," Alistair says. He follows her fingers, streaking out towards the horizon. The downturned sword hangs, just there. _Justice_.

They don't do this so often, anymore; naming the constellations off the tops of their heads, tracing glowing tracks through the skies. There are so many stories that neither of them knows, but in the freezing mountain air, there's something strangely sacred to what they _do_ have. Bethany thinks of all the old rituals between her and Alistair and no one else would ever consider important, and this is certainly one of them.

And yet—

Alistair understands.

Alistair always, always understands.

"Judex," Bethany echoes, nodding just a little, the ancient name for the constellation held like a flower in her mouth. The growing-in scruff of Alistair's beard scratches. "And Silentir."

"And Silentir," Alistair agrees. He goes quiet for a moment, stroking a thumb over the bumps of Bethany's knuckles. "You know, I really think we ought to revisit going back to Kirkwall."

He says it lightly, with very little fanfare, but he means it. There's a seriousness that only ever seems to surface when Alistair actually, truly means something, and it's there in his voice right now. Whether it's been prompted again by Maddox or the Grand Enchanter or, or—any of it, all of it, none of it—whatever it is, that skein of seriousness stills Bethany's blood.

"You say that," she says, biting down on her lip, "but, Alistair…"

"I know," he says. Air hisses out through his teeth on the exhale. "I know we ought—we've got _responsibilities_ —but Beth, _Mal_ —"

Bethany shakes her head against his collarbone. The night is frigid, and they aren't _nearly_ alone enough to have this conversation. Not safe enough by far; she'd rather have Skyhold's thick stone walls between her and the outside, when they talk about this. Because they will talk about it again, even though they've talked about it before. It always comes back, as soon as they've done something absolutely ridiculous that nearly got one or both of them killed— _maybe we ought to disappear into the Hinterlands. Maybe we ought to go home_. _Maybe we ought to take our children and leave, while we still can_.

As always, Alistair isn't entirely wrong, is the problem.

For a fraction of a second, Alistair's arms squeeze tight around her. Moonlight pools luminous in the creases of his skin, knuckles and palms and wrists. Bethany inspects him, free of the gloves and gauntlets she's so accustomed to when they're out and away from the castle. He'd not taken them off once since they left for the Shrine, but they're gone, now.

Alistair deconstructs himself for her, even when other people are around to see. He hasn't a bone of artifice in his body.

Andraste, she loves him so much that sometimes it steals her breath.

Now is one of those times.

"It'll be fine," she says, teeth aching with it. Sweetness claws at her throat; there is always so much of it, love, too much, and somehow also never enough of it, either. Alistair's arms around her block the wind, and from up here with his breath on her neck and the moonlight between them, the night doesn't seem so dark.

"I know," he murmurs, again, heavy on a sigh. "We've covered this, haven't we?"

"You're going to have to talk to Ser Cullen," Bethany says, softly, like an apology. "He—you saw how he was."

"Can't you do it? You're better at the feelings than I am," Alistair says. It comes out sounding like a whinge, low and nasal in her ear. "Please?"

"You're the templar in this room, not me," Bethany smiles very secretly, turns her face into the comforting breadth of his jaw. If she were twisted up any more, her back would snap clean in two. It's worth it to be so close. "And I didn't know Maddox, Alistair. You did."

"I knew Meredith, too, and he never listened to me about her, either," Alistair grumbles into her hair. "Shite, I hate it when you're right."

Bethany giggles, so quietly under her breath. He doesn't, really; they've needed each other for too long, have gutted themselves clean through for the chance to be easy. A decade, now, that they've belonged only because they made space for belonging inside each other; the golden bristles of Alistair's beard, the inky whorls of Bethany's curls. Threaded through with white, the both of them, as they've gotten older. There is comfort in knowing someone so intimately, if only because it's impossible to forget that they know each other down to the marrow, the blood and the bone.

They're different people entire from when they met.

But—

That's what it means to love someone, the way that Bethany loves Alistair.

"Can I at least wait until we're back?" Alistair asks. "I'd rather it not be a public conversation. He might punch me in the face, and we don't need anyone to see that. There'll be blood, it'll be unsightly!"

"Maker, Alistair, I don't expect you to have that conversation in public!"

Alistair grins at her, lopsided. "Well, that settles that, then."

It doesn't, really. But something is better than nothing.

And besides.

They're almost home.

—

"Mummy," says Malcolm, looking up at the door. There are blocks scattered around him, sunglow slanted across his face. Her son's eyes are the colour of aged Chasind mead in the light, radiant amber. "Father's coming. There's blood."

Bethany is about to ask him just what on the Maker's green earth he's talking about, when Alistair stumbles through the door, gushing blood from the nose like a spring.

"Ow," he says.

(Well, that explains _that_.)

Bethany is up and across the room before she's even aware she's moving. "Alistair, what _happened_?!"

"I tolb 'ou 'e was gonna puncb be," he says, through the thick of the blood. It's entirely too cheerful for someone _bleeding_ all over the place the way he is. "Hurh's, though."

"Maker, stop talking and let me fix it," Bethany manages, hands shaking. She hates, hates, _hates_ it, the tremble in her chest ruthlessly squashed down to the bottom of her stomach to deal with later, when her husband isn't looking so pale from the blood loss.

"Ib's fine, Beth, ib's stobbing already—"

"Alistair, let me," she says, firm but so very, very quiet. He stills beneath her hands, the sparkle of healing lighting between her fingers, a flash blue-white-green that lingers beneath her fingernails.

"Thanks," he says, shoulders slumping loose once the blood's finished making a mess of his face and the bruises under his eyes have bloomed, mottled, faded; several weeks go by under her magic, until all the hurts have faded. "You didn't have to, dear."

"I wanted to," Bethany says. Bright red gore all over her does little for her mental state, but the frantic panic in her throat snuffs out like candlelight. She hovers in the circle of his arms, hands still curled around his face.

A little blood never hurt anyone, Bethany forces herself to think.

The bleeding's stopped, now, though his nose is still twice-broken-crooked—that's old damage, damage from before Lothering that Bethany can't fix—and he blinks down at her, very tender and altogether too indulgent for someone who's obviously been knocked arse over teakeattle. If his brains aren't rattled, Bethany might have to do it herself. She's no healer, and she can't fix pain that she can't see.

"Does it still hurt?" she asks.

Alistair heaves out all the breath in his lungs, drops his chin to the top of Bethany's head. There's going to be blood in her hair. Bethany finds that she doesn't much care, and clings to him a little tighter, instead.

"Nah," he says. "I suppose I deserved it."

"What did you tell him?"

Alistair grins, a flash of teeth; there's nothing nice about it. Awful kindness, the sharp edges of a blade. "Are you sure you want to know? You might not like me anymore, Beth."

"I don't even think that's possible?"

The sharp-edged grin turns into a low bark of laughter. "I may have pointed out that this whole business with Maddox and tranquility—it would have happened to you, if Meredith had ever found us out."

" _Alistair_."

"He needed to hear it," Alistair says, voice carefully neutral. "And it's the truth, isn't it?"

"I—" Bethany cuts herself off, really thinks about it. _Corrupting the moral integrity of a templar_ , for the passing of notes between sweethearts. She and Alistair had arguably been much, much worse; what would she have even called a marriage to an apostate? An offense against the Maker? And Andraste knows, Knight-Commander Meredith would have relished it, would have relished having something to so hurt Alistair with, and nothing to say of how the woman would have used it against Marian.

Cripple the Hawke family, flash her teeth, tighten the templar's hold on Kirkwall, entire. There are _layers_ to it; so many birds with only one single stone. It's almost elegant, when Bethany thinks about it like that.

The truth is that Ser Cullen _did_ need to hear it, and it's not something he would take so easily, hearing it from Mother.

Mother can sort out an entire pickle of ex-templars without too much trouble, usually, but—

Well, this might have been too hard. Ser Cullen respects Mother too much to ever take what she's saying with a grain of salt, but Alistair is another story entirely.

"It's not _not_ the truth," Bethany admits, halting around the double negative. Because it's a horrible thought, Tranquility. It sits beneath her breastbone, leaking freezing cold into her veins like she's swallowed a block of ice.

"I know it's not," says Alistair. His face is drawn. "But I thought about it, did you know? I thought about it all the time, it was driving me mental—"

"Father, how long are you going to stand there dripping blood into mummy's hair?"

Bethany and Alistair both startle backwards a step, having temporarily forgotten that they aren't the only people in the room. Malcolm clearly feels as though he's given them enough time to themselves. Coloured witchlights flicker around him, the faint crackle of lightning, the primal haze of a child with feral magic.

"Can you get me something to wipe it up with?" Alistair crooks an eyebrow at their son. "I've already got your mum covered, but Gran will yell at us both if we stain the carpet."

Malcolm regards them for a moment, measuring. Bethany watches as he puts the thoughts together; his face is clear as glass. She's not upset by the blood, and Alistair isn't upset by the blood, but Gran Leandra _will_ yell if she bloods anywhere as it shouldn't be.

But it's only blood.

No one's using it, anyway.

"I can do that," Malcolm says, _announces_ , pleased with himself in the decision-making. Bethany's son scrambles up into standing, hurrying to the pile of clean linens hiding in the cubboard as fast as his chubby little legs will carry him.

But he doesn't ask what happened, either already aware of what's transpired, or simply content in the knowledge that if it involved him in any significant way, he'd be told as much.

And then he's hurrying right back, holding out clean towels with the usual imperiousness. Maker, but he never expects to be told _no_. Bethany has no idea what she's going to do with him, her baby, her starlight, her chest-strickening love.

Malcolm, Bethany reflects, really is not like any other child she has ever met in her life.

"You'll show your sisters up, at this rate," Alistair says, grinning down at Mal. He wipes his face clean with the offered towel. It's more than a little bit of a relief. "Well done."

Malcolm glows beneath his father's praise.

Watching them, Bethany's heart trembles in her chest like fragile glass. It's too much. It's always been too much.

Maybe Alistair is right.

Maybe they ought to leave.

—

Three days later, when the twins are off terrorizing Varric and Malcolm has attached himself to the Grand Enchanter's hip and Mother is firmly scolding the mages into shape and Alistair is at another meeting in Lady Lavellan's war room, Bethany goes to the nursery.

Nothing ought to grow, in Skyhold.

They're up high enough that the air ought to be barely thick enough to breathe, let alone grow enough food to feed a castle and then healing herbs besides, but here they are.

As soon as Bethany steps out into the courtyard, the scent of green growing things assaults her nose. There's no wasted space; peas grow next to carrots next to wild autumn squash, with no regard to nature's seasonal laws. Magic lives in the foundational stones of this place, in the very earth itself. It allows these things to thrive, when by all rights they ought to be dead under the mountain's cold winter winds.

There's rather a lot to be said, for magic.

Bethany pushes her curls out of her face, and gets to work.

Elfroot, spindleweed, blood lotus. The fragrance of fresh-snapped stalks suffuse the air, a clean, earthy perfume that lingers in corners of her mind and makes her think of the little flowerbeds beneath the windows that Father had built into every place they'd lived, so that there would always be fresh shoots for more delicate things than an elfroot poultice. The depressions in the thick loamy soil to her left wait for new plants; Lady Lavellan brought back amrita vein from the Hissing Wastes, and Bethany plants two such precious seeds when no one is looking.

They're not the Wounded Coast's riotus fall of harlot's blush and palmfern, but they're more than good enough.

It takes an hour, but Bethany's basket fills eventually up to the brim with the waxy dark leaves and the bright crimson berries of prophet's laurel, tucked between the filmy gloss of spindleweed's plum wine and the heavy carmine of blood lotus bulbs, all padded 'round by elfroot's slim stalks. It's enough to replenish the store cubboard three times over, and no one will even notice she's been here and gone.

It sticks in Bethany's throat, acrid as a Blighted land, when she doesn't have the things she needs.

Especially when they're things so simple as _herbs_.

But it's easier to busy herself with things she _can_ control, rather as things she can't. She can't control the demons that fell out of the sky, nor can she control the shredded fabric of the Veil, nor can she control whether or not Alistair goes back out into the world, day after day, risking his neck for people who don't even know his name.

But she can control whether or not she's got the right herbs to patch him back together when he comes home full of holes.

It's something, at least.

And with that thought, Bethany makes her way back home, the push and pull of Skyhold's daily rhythm carrying her forward in eddies. Raucous laughter bounces through the hall; Varric entertaining, most like, or an Orlesian delegation offended on principle by lack of Fereldan propriety, or whatever it if they're complaining about, these days. With the Breach closed, there's a little more room to breathe.

Bethany doesn't know what she was expecting, when she pushes through the unlocked door. Alistair, perhaps, or the twins come home early. Maybe even Malcolm and the Grand Enchanter, passing away the afternoon in relative peace.

She was _not_ expecting her mother.

Lady Leandra Hawke looks very well-pleased with herself, sitting in the squashy chair by the fire with her needlework in her lap. She wears her shawl drawn loosely over her shoulders, a certain fragility that seems at odds with everything that Bethany has ever known. Mother looks old.

Bethany has not spoken to her mother in near a month.

She'd not been planning to start again, today.

(The fury at the betrayal has had time to mellow; it's lost its potency in the face of the Shrine and the red lyrium and the fallout of Ser Cullen punching Alistair in the nose. And yet, despite the fact that Bethany well knows that holding onto the resentment won't help anyone, that doesn't mean that it's entirely gone away, either. Shattered trust can't be fixed by magic. Some hurts only heal with time.)

"Hello, Mother," Bethany says. "Has something happened?"

Bethany has spent her whole life tucking away her real feelings; it's not a hard habit to pick right back up where she left it. In the halls of templar-induced fear and Chantry-broken promises, she finds that her ability to hide remains untarnished.

"Oh, Bethy, darling, _there_ you are! I was about to send Lia out to find you," Mother says, eyes glinting with something that isn't quite mirth, but is something close to it. "Look who's come to visit!"

In the other squashy chair sits Solona Amell.

Bethany's cousin looks exactly as Bethany remember her. There are strands of shining white threaded through the feathery dark of her hair, and perhaps more smile lines around her eyes, but there are flowers still sleeping in her wrists, in the shockingly bright blue of her eyes, in the even brows and the sharp line of her nose. The simple kindness of someone used to living with her head down because it was _safer_ that way remains the same.

Kinloch Hold left its mark on Bethany's cousin and left it well, but the shadows have smeared and lessened in the long years since.

And now she's sitting there in Alistair's favourite chair, every step in stride, the Inquisition she'd left bustling along outside, and Solona can only sort of shrug and smile.

"It was Nerry's idea," Solona says, a little sheepish. "She says _hello_ , by the way."

Something awful and sloshy prickles behind Bethany's eyes. There is an unravelling inside of her chest, all the stitched-together bits that Bethany has struggled with. Kirkwall, and the explosion, and everyone she cares about scattered to the winds, and Marian, and—

And Alistair, too.

(It always comes back to Alistair, doesn't it?)

Bethany swallows down the tiny sob welling in her throat. There's no use crying, especially when there's nothing to cry _about_! Solona's presence is a relief in the way that Carver's presence is a relief: Bethany can't worry about them when they're standing right in front of her.

And family is family.

There is _nothing_ like family.

Bethany sets the herbs down, and stumbles over to wrap her arms around her cousin tight enough to bruise. Solona laughs, high and bright, and returns the embrace _fiercely_.

"Maker, it's good to see you," Bethany whispers. "I didn't know if we'd see each other again."

"Neither did I," Solona says, and Bethany thinks that she's not the only one blinking away tears.

And so, it's like this:

Bethany and Solona pass the afternoon in conversation, stripping down the last year and half down to its bare essentials for one another, pinning time in place like a butterfly on a board. It's easy to talk about everything that's happened, now, everything that's led them all to Skyhold, because so far it's all had a happy ending. No one's died; nearly loosing Malcolm to the cold and the snow is the hardest bit to relay, but Bethany manages it by reminding herself that her son is either with the Grand Enchanter, with his sisters, or with Alistair. He'll be home come sundown, and his eyes will be bright and his breathing will be clear, and she won't think about what it felt like to hold him while his soul fought his body's clutches.

Solona listens quietly, face drawn.

Bethany does not pretend that she would have survived losing her baby. She likely wouldn't have, and Solona understands this.

 _I don't blame you_ , Bethany wants to tell her. _I don't blame you for not being there. Andraste, I hope you know that I don't_.

Solona smiles, tiny out of the corner of her mouth, and this is forgiveness as the Amell-Hawkes understand it. Mother's lips curl up, the glint from earlier turning pleased and fond. It hurts like a dagger between the ribs; Mother used to look at Father like that. It's just the same.

 _Oh_ , Bethany thinks.

 _Oh_.

Bethany wants to hold onto that cold fury, but she's never been very good at holding her anger in her chest. Even righteous anger is exhausting in large doses; she wonders, sometimes, how Marian does it. How does she hold onto herself through it? Bethany doesn't understand, and doesn't think she ever will. Her older sister's hanging rope is left loose with slack for the length she needs to strangle herself, but Bethany is not her older sister, and this is not Kirkwall, and the world is not glossed so silver that Bethany is free of the conventions of loving their mother, terrible and unfair as it is.

Forgiving Mother her lack of shame and her secret-keeping is not an easy thing.

But just like that, Bethany can feel it cut away from her, floating away like dandelion seeds caught on an autumn breeze. There are real problems in the world and Mother, for all that she is, is not one of them.

Everything Leandra Hawke has ever done has been to give her children a better chance of it.

Bethany's heart clenches in her chest, because Maker knows, she's done very much the same. Not the same sort of secrets, and not kept from the same people, but secrets kept all the same.

In so many ways, Alistair had never wanted to know more about his family than he already knew, he'd not been fussed in the knowing. The dealing is a different thing, but the knowing—the knowing hadn't been so bad.

But Bethany had expected better of her mother.

This, above all, is why she's held onto it this long. If it were Marian and Carver or—or anyone, else at all, it wouldn't sting so much.

But it wasn't anyone else.

It was Mother.

And so it stings, even now. It might never _not_ sting, but Bethany breathes it out. Resentment cut loose wilts to nothing, and there's only peace left behind. It is not an easy forgiveness. It is the hardest forgiveness of all.

But it is forgiveness, all the same.

And something goes lax inside of her chest with it for the first time in what feels like forever. It feels exactly how it did when Alistair had first stumbled across Bethany's magic, that strange, wistful relief that a secret was finally, finally out in the open air.

That the choice had been taken away.

And Bethany is older, now. She understands better what she'd nearly given up—any templar who isn't Alistair and Alistair's near-pathological inability to see her unhappy would have walked her straight to the Cahntry and then to Redcliffe, a boat, and Kinloch Hold—and what it would have cost her family for it. The shape of it is clearer, youth's invincible crystalline sheen crackling and bubbling up, rotted never peeling away to reveal the sickness underneath.

She understands that what she's been wishing for doesn't exist,

There are no easy escapes. There is magic, and the Circle, and the templars, and fear. There are demons, and apostates, and the wild reaches of the ends of the Maker's green earth where these things coincide. There used to be a hole in the sky, and sometimes it still feels like it's there, even though it's not.

But there are no easy escapes.

Bethany settles down next to her cousin, and forgives her mother, and thinks that this must be what it is to move on.

—

"They're calling their peace talks a _ball_."

"That seems… very Orlesian?"

Alistair grimaces. "That's what _I_ said. It's going to be a right mess, Beth."

"Do we have to be there?" Bethany asks. Maybe it's a silly question.

He hesitates, scrubs a hand over his hair. Maker knows, Alistair hates leaving the children, too. They've done it so often, recently; it's not right. "You don't have to. I'd rather you didn't, in fact. But I—I do."

"And I won't let you go alone, so it doesn't matter," Bethany finishes the sentence for him, steel-eyed. A little of the anxiety tightening his shoulders drains away.

"I wish you wouldn't," he says, but the protest is rote.

Andraste, but Alistair is such a bad liar. Bethany almost has to smile about it. "No, you don't. Are you coming to bed?"

Alistair hums his acquiescence. In the banked glow of the fire, he's down to his shirtsleeves, painted flickering red-gold. Bethany forgets, sometimes, how attractive he is; in the wash of light, it strikes her all over again. Alistair is golden and dark, lines around his eyes, and there is incredible fondness in Bethany's chest as he slides into bed next to her.

She curls right into him, into the wide breadth of his shoulders, and thinks about hiding there forever.

"Hello there," Bethany says, smiles up at him. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," Alistair murmurs. It's the way he says it: he _means_ it, means it down to his bones. He brushes a curl out of her face, so very gentle. "Long day?"

"They're always long days when my mother is plotting." Bethany sighs, and this is true. "She's—you know how she is."

Alistair tucks the wide slab of his arm beneath her head for a pillow, and crooks an eyebrow. "You think she's plotting sommat? What?"

"I don't know," Bethany shakes her head, just a little back and forth, staring at the ceiling. Mother is always planning _something_. "I wouldn't be surprised if she's managed an invitation to the Winter Palace, honestly. She _is_ Lady Hawke."

Alistair grins. "Aren't _you_ Lady Hawke?"

"Not the way Mother is."

This is also true.

They lie there for a while, in the quiet and the dark, listening to one another breathe. Heat radiates from Alistair's frame, chasing away the chill of the night, and Bethany can feel the stress of the day finally beginning to slake away from her shoulders, beaten off like chaff from wheat. All of her muscles go loose, and the sweet oblivion of the Fade hovers behind her eyes.

Bethany hardly dreams, when Alistair is laying next to her. He scares off all her demons, just as he always has.

"You don't have to come if you don't want to, Beth," Alistair says, into the dark.

"If you're going—" Bethany stops, pauses, takes a moment to compose herself. Even after all this time, he still—even after all this time. "If you're going, Alistair, then so am I."

Alistair huffs out a please sound, and drags Bethany in closer to his chest. He's a long line of familiar heat, and oh, Andraste, it doesn't matter how close she gets, it will never be close enough. She wants to crawl inside his skin.

"Who do we want to look after Mal and the twins?"

"Between Mother and the Grand Enchanter and Sonny, I think we'll have our pick," Bethany says, a little wryly. She wonders, fleetingly, if that wasn't precisely what Mother was intending, calling Solona back.

Two birds with one stone. Mother does so love elegance.

"Maker's breath," Alistair exhales heavily. " _Mothers_."

Through the gloom, Bethany can only barely make out his face. In profile like this, she can't quite tell what he's feeling; there is such absolute exhaustion to the way it leaves him, but nothing else.

She reaches up, touches his cheek. "Have you spoken to her?"

"Haven't had the time," Alistair says. He turns his face towards the palm, mouth to the tips of her fingers. He grins, or maybe grimaces is a better word. "I don't know what to say, Beth. Nothing seems right. I can't walk up to her and go, _hello, you're my mother, we ought to talk_. Can I?"

"Do you want to?"

"Not really."

 _I don't know_ what _I want to do about it_ , hangs between them, unspoken. Bethany closes her eyes for a second longer than a standard blink, buries his face against his arm. The nighttime makes it easier to say these things, or to not say them. It makes it easier to take them apart, and not lose themselves in the process.

"We don't have to decide right now," Bethany says.

It feels like an echo. Now, now, now.

Instead of an answer, Alistair runs his fingers through her curls. Bethany can feel the bad tremble to his hands.

She doesn't mention it.

She doesn't need it.

Because there are things that are still and silent between them; the Grand Enchanter is only one of them. There's the Inquisition, and Kirkwall, and Ser Cullen. There's Bethany's older sister, and the red lyrium, and the ancient thaig that had started it all. There's Alistair's family. There is Maddox. There is Samsom.

Like droplets of water in a bucket. Little fears, dripping down a window.

And there are their children.

Oh, Maker, there are their _children_.

Bethany and Alistair fall asleep tangled together, knotted close as a beating heart, and aim to sleep through until morning. The world will look better, then; it will be brighter in the sunshine, a little more silver, a little more gold.

It can't much look worse, after all.

—

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.

.

.

 _tbc_.


	10. with eyes aflame

**disclaimer** : disclaimed  
 **dedication** : to megan, who enables me, and also, she keeps writing cliffhangers? so like. here.  
 **notes** : listen sometimes i just want them to _kiss_ ok?!  
 **notes2** : _enjoy your life_ — MARINA.

 **title** : with eyes aflame  
 **summary** : There is a new Commander in Haven. — templar!au part ii; Alistair/Bethany.

—

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Nighttime comes.

The evening is pale blue, the air washed cool with dew and the far-away strains of music, and the Winter Palace glitters, lit golden with a thousand candles. People mill about the gardens, masks catching the light, laughter low and burbling sweetly. It's an unreal place, clouds of perfume following women with porcelain faces and beautiful dresses, shadow-dark and unsweet as unsugared chocolate. Me with shining pits for eyes behind their masks and more money than sense lounge at every turn. Laughter tinkles silver and starlight, cut with the evening's cool air.

Bethany tucks her hand into the crook of Alistair's arm.

Oh, Maker, she's never felt more out of place in her _life_.

(The templars had watched, and Kirkwall at the very beginning had been only heart-clenching terror for it. The Winter Palace is different: it's very easy to tell a templar amongst a crowd. It's not so easy to tell a murderer in a crowd of equally blood-soaked knives.)

"If I never come back here again, it'll be too soon," Alistair grumbles in Bethany's ear.

"We can survive one night, I think," she murmurs in reply. "We look the part, at least?"

It's true, they do the look part.

There is a morbid elegance to the sweep of monochrome and gold that drip from all the members of Lady Lavellan's delegation. Austere and glittering, they catch the silvery illumination from the witchlamps, resplendent and looking absolutely as though they all belong. Bethany's curls tumble loose over her bared shoulders, the beaded bodice of her ink-black dress cut low in front and lower in the back, shimmering with its own gathered darkness.

It is, Bethany thinks, the most Chasind thing she's ever owned.

"Yes, well. You look—" Alistair pauses, surveys her up and down out of the corner of his eye. To Bethany's _delight_ , he turns faintly pink just along the ridges of his cheekbones. "You _do_ look lovely, Beth."

"You don't look so bad yourself," Bethany murmurs, fondly. It's very easy to tip her head up to brush her mouth against his jaw, so she does.

Alistair turns pinker.

"We're very lucky most people think I'm a fool, or this would be very embarrassing," Alistair tells her, crooking an eyebrow at her.

"What, blushing at your wife?" Bethany teases. Now that she thinks about it, she's rather pink, too. If he's a fool, she's not much better.

So, fools, the both of them.

"More like the part where I'm painfully desperate for your attention, but I suppose it's the same thing," he shrugs.

It's a good thing that they're in a garden. Gardens have hedges and hedges are very helpful given Bethany's sudden current desire to drag her husband someplace private. She darts up on her toes, catches his mouth, hums pleasure when his hands close convulsively around her hips.

Oh, yes, this is what she wanted.

"You know," Alistair says, a little strangled, "one of these days, we're going to get in trouble."

"At least it'll be both of us getting in trouble?" Bethany manages, only a little unsteady. Everything is a bit lover-dark, her lips bitten-kissed and her fingers wound tight into his well-cut jacket and her heart, always her heart, yearning for the closeness of his arms.

"I've mussed you all up," Alistair murmurs, voice like gravel. "Maker, Beth, at this rate we're going to be indecent, and then we're going to have _more_ children. Not that that'd be a bad thing, mind you, I'm rather interested in the making—"

Bethany smothers a hysteric, high-pitched little giggle into the crook of his neck. "Incorrigible!"

"I try," Alistair grants. He pulls back enough to smile down at her, crinkling along the eyes. "You are, though."

"What?"

"Lovely."

Bethany has to kiss him all over again, for that.

When they finally manage to come up for air, the bulk of the guests have wandered themselves in towards the Winter Palace. Alistair takes a moment to sort them both out; he brushes Bethany's curls out of her eyes, tugs the wide neckline of her dress back up to where it belongs to cover the already-reddening mouth marks all over her shoulders; sets her back to rights as best he can.

"My turn," Bethany murmurs, tugging gently on his lapels, soft and shining in the eyes.

"I don't know if there's a point, love, I'm a right mess," he says. He's flushed all the way to the tips of his ears, his eyes glazed. His hair sticks up at the back from where Bethany's been tugging at it, his doublet loose, breeches untucked. He looks half-mauled and _delicious_ for it. If Bethany were younger, she'd probably be more embarrassed about this, but it's rather hard when Alistair is gazing down at her fondly as he is, all warm brown eyes and tiny quirked grin.

"Alistair," Bethany says, patience and steel in equal measure, " _let_ me."

And he does.

Bethany goes about straightening his surcoat, smoothing down the sharp-tailored seams. Carefully rebuttons his buttons, flattens his hair into some semblance of order, tucks in his undershirt. His mail is light, meant more for decoration than for protection; it sets her teeth on edge, that there's so few layers of metal between her husband's neck and whatever sharp things might come their way.

But he shines, does Alistair.

It takes Bethany's breath away.

"There," she says at last, so quietly. Her fingers linger at his chest, fiddling over the bright brass gleam. "All done."

Alistair catches her wrist, pulls it up to his mouth, kisses her fingertips. _Grins_ unrepentantly at her sharp inhale of breath; he really _is_ incorrigible. "What would I do without you?"

"We do have to go inside, eventually," Bethany tells him, a little unsteady.

"Eventually," Alistair agrees absently. He dips down to brush his mouth over the high curve of her cheek. His hands dig sharply into her hips, reeling her close, so close. "I feel like I never see you anymore, love."

Bethany sways in closer. "You're going to muss us up again."

"I don't think that's entirely a bad thing, Beth—"

"Oh, Maker, please don't."

Alistair groans into Bethany's curls and she has to bite back a hysteric giggle. "I _hate_ him," her husband mutters, "He ruins _everything_ —"

"Lady Montilyet sent me," Ser Cullen says, like an apology. Bethany peers over Alistair's shoulder to find Ser Cullen staring determinedly at the splay of stars across the sky, doing absolutely everything he can to avoid looking them. "Are you two decent?"

(Bethany doesn't really blame the poor man for not wanting to look, even though they _are_ wearing clothes, this time. _This time_.)

"Not because I want to be," Alistair tosses over his shoulder casually and yet rather _pointedly_. "Go away, would you?"

"Why do I put up with you," Ser Cullen groans under his breath, still managing to be loud enough to be heard over the pleasant burble of the water fountain.

Bethany giggles into Alistair's throat, high and breathless. "He likes us."

"Yes, he rather does," Alistair says, very smugly, and certainly loud enough to be overheard. "Too bad for him, isn't it?"

Ser Cullen groans again. The night pinks up with his desolation, all for more for how dramatic it is. "Are you two going to stop, or is Josephine going to have to come deal with it? Please. That's cruel. She'll panic herself out of her skin."

"Yeah, we'll be in," Alistair answers for the both of them. "Now would you _go somewhere else_ already. mate?"

"There's no helping you. Maker, just get _decent_!" Ser Cullen throws his proverbial hands up and tromps off, making exceedingly cantankerous comments under his breath about the sort of people he deigns to associate with.

Bethany waits until he's out of earshot to laugh into Alistair's throat some more. "You enjoy harassing him too much."

"Someone should," Alistair grins into the top of her head. "Maker's breath, it'll be the only fun I'll have all night. Don't take it away from me, Beth!"

"I would never," Bethany says, dimples up at him. "Shall we go inside, then?"

"I'd call that ruining my fun, you know," Alistair snorts.

Bethany doesn't bother to dignify this with a response. Her _husband_.

He grins again, arms still looped around her frame. "How do you do that, love? You make a very compelling argument, but you don't say a word?"

"Magic," Bethany flashes him a brilliant little smile. She stands up on her toes to brush her lips against his cheek, winding her hands into his lapels for balance. The sharp intake of his breath is _very_ satisfying. "Let's go save Ser Cullen from Lady Montilyet's wrath?"

"You're too nice to him," Alistair says, voice a little rough. "He could use a little suffering; I've had to deal her hovering at me for the last _week_. He ran off every time she turned up, Beth, I thought I was going to go mad!"

"She means well," Bethany murmurs. She tucks herself beneath Alistair's arm, tugging him forwards and out of the garden spill of perfume and foliage; they're too close to one another for propriety's sake, but she finds that she doesn't much care. It's _right_ that she be this close to Alistair, and Bethany doesn't care who knows it.

Alistair sighs, and allows it.

They meander their way out of the gardens, towards the glittering golden gates, arm-in-arm. Among the last stragglers to make their way indoors, Bethany finds herself watching people as they pass. Tension ripples beneath the surface of the way they all move, held stiff and terrified in the face of the coming storm. Ginger, like a broken bone.

Andraste, it's no wonder Orlesians wear masks.

If they didn't, absolutely everyone could see how _afraid_ they are.

But the Winter Palace is a study in decadence. Those glittering gates lead up stark white stairs to a foyer covered over in gilt and glimmer and gold. There's marble's pale cream, obsidian's wet-ink shine, the flickering glow of a million candles and the soft strains of a far-away orchestra lingering in the air.

"Thank the Maker, _there_ you are! They are about to announce Lady Lavellan!"

Josephine Montilyet is more tense than Bethany has ever seen. Her jaw is tight, her gaze is wild, and she's clutching at the air frenetically as though she'd give anything on the Maker's green earth to have her writing board in her hands. It's very alarming, as these things go. Bethany didn't think there was _anything_ that could rattle Lady Montilyet, but here they are. The woman eyes Alistair and Bethany up and down; the spike in her breathing from the sheer panic is audible. She is near vibrating out of her skin.

(They have clearly been deemed not up to standard. Alistair glances at Bethany out of the corner of his eye, and has the gall to _wink_. Bethany jabs her elbow into his side in revenge.)

"Josie, calm down! The night's barely begun," Sister Leliana laughs softly from the shadow of a pillar. "I'm sure there will be plenty more things to fret over than our illustriously rumpled Commander and his wife."

"Leliana, _please_!"

The good Sister laughs again, stepping forwards into the light. Madame de Fer had insisted that the Inquisition look their very best tonight, and it's a relief that she did; they are all stark and austere, uniform in black and white and gold. Sister Leliana was not spared. "Josie, we're here, now. Let's make the best of it, hm?"

Lady Montilyet deflates in place. Her shoulders slump, the breath goes out of her, and she looks—very young, all of a sudden, Bethany thinks.

It's easy to forget that Lady Montilyet is Bethany's own age, or just a bare year younger. The Inquisition's Ambassador is so frighteningly competent that she seems much olde; it's only times like this that Bethany realizes that people are just people, no matter how old they get.

"Please—please do not do anything unnecessary," Lady Montilyet says, at last. All her breath gusts out of her, as though she's entirely given up.

Bethany privately thinks that asking this particular group of individuals not to do anything unnecessary is asking rather too much. Before she can voice this thought—or whisper very quietly it into Alistair's ear, for him alone—Lady Montilyet herds them forwards.

In they go, into the gleaming mar of the Winter Palace's ballroom, to await their introductions.

"Lord Alistair of Kirkwall, Commander of the Inquisition's forces, and his wife, Lady Bethany Hawke, sister to the Champion of Kirkwall!" rings out across the room.

Bethany keeps her palm tucked into the crook of Alistair's elbow and her head down, slow and graceful as a line of music. The light slicks off her hair

"We're being stared at."

"Your sister _did_ start a war, love," Alistair reminds her, very unnecessarily. He catches her eye and grins, small enough that it's only for her, careful and private. There's plenty of reasons they're being stared at; the Champion of Kirkwall is only one of them.

The walk across the floor is endlessly slow. The introductions continue, one title after another—a long string of names that belongs to Lady Pentaghast that Varric is _never_ going to let her live down—Sister Leliana and Lady Montilyet ahead, Ser Cullen behind.

A stately elegance, one and all.

Lady Lavellan's advisors and their various hangers-on hang back far enough not to intrude on the the Inquisitor's conversation with the Empress. There are layers to it. so many layers, and Bethany never really learned to play the Game.

The Empress inclines her head.

They are dismissed.

 **INTRODUCTIONS**

 **VARRIC HAS SOME** _ **THOUGHTS**_ **ABOUT THIS PLACE, SEEKER**

Varric looks to be about two moments away from pulling a quill and a scrap of paper out from underneath his jacket to start writing lurid lies about absolutely everyone in the room. He's as colourless as the rest: his hair stands our red-gold-threaded-white over the black-dyed leather and the golden thread.

(Madame de Fer had _committed_ to the aesthetic. Bethany will give the woman that.)

But oh, Bethany is desperately fond of him.

"Mari would be hurt you dressed up without her."

"Shit, Sunshine, what can I say? A dwarf's gotta clean up sometimes," Varric says. "And Hawke doesn't get to talk, she goes to fun parties without me all the time!"

"You hate parties, Varric."

"I hate 'em less when your sister's around."

This is very true on all counts, Bethany thinks. She leans against him, content to watch Alistair and Lady Lavellan's other advisors bicker companionably amongst themselves. Varric is sturdy as a stone in a river, scrubbly and rough and familiar as anything for it. His gaze keeps skipping; keeps eyeing the hallways and the vestibule around them up and down. His attention stays nowhere for longer than half a second, and he misses nothing. Andraste, she doesn't even want to _think_ about what terribly gleeful things are running through his head.

"Looking for someone?" Bethany asks.

Varric glances up at her, measuring. Maker, Bethany knows that look—that's the _to tell Hawke's baby sister or_ not _to tell Hawke's baby sister_ look, and though it's been a year or two or five since Bethany's seen, it's not something a person just _forgets_.

"If my sister decides to show up out of the blue, Varric…"

"Shit, no, I'd have a heart attack!" Varric says, aghast. He throws a hand over his heart, _gasps_ at the sheer audacity. But his voice drops, eyes flickering over Bethany's shoulder. "Nah, it's—I'm looking for the Seeker."

"Seeker Pentaghast? Why?"

"'Cause she's—" Varric cuts himself off, squints up at her, eyes very narrow. "You're too easy to talk to, Sunshine, you know that?"

"We have that in common, I think," Bethany laughs softly. She bumps her hip against him. "Story-teller."

"You wound me, madame!"

"You'll survive. So what _about_ Seeker Pentaghast? Are you worried she's going to kidnap you again?"

"I don't think even the Seeker could manage to kidnap me twice."

"What, then?"

Varric sighs. His shoulders slump. "You're not gonna let this go, are you?"

"You brought it up," says Bethany, very reasonably. "And Mari would never forgive me if I missed an opportunity to tease you."

Whatever Varric is about to say is cut off when Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast herself comes stomping up, the very picture of a Nevarran noblewoman in mourning: deeply irate, dressed in black, and appallingly ready to fight a dragon or breathe fire or possibly both. She's wearing a _dress_ , shoulders bare, her fury wrapped around her like a shroud.

Varric gulps audibly.

Seeker Pentaghast pays them not one iota of attention: she heads straight for Alistair and Ser Cullen and the others, a thundercloud on her face. Bethany has to smother a giggle when her husband actually takes a step back—Andraste, she'd do the same if Seeker Pentaghast were stomping towards her with _that_ look on her face.

Alistair _is_ sensible, sometimes.

But Bethany misses the other reactions (Ser Cullen's would have been spectacular, no doubt, and she's sorry to have missed it), because Varric makes a low whistling sound like the air let out of a pig's bladder balloon, an unconscious thing, and Bethany looks down at him instead, blinking.

Varric looks _gutted_.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

"Varric," Bethany says, slowly so as not to frighten him off. "You might want to close your mouth. You'll catch flies like that."

Varric shakes himself out of the stupor.

It's also in this moment that he seems to realize that he's not alone, and that Bethany is still very much standing next to him. Varric regards her for a very long moment. It feels, oddly, like how Carver used to regard her: _how far can I push this_ , says that squint-eyed

"Don't tell Hawke," he says.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Bethany smiles. "I will have to tease you in her place, though."

"That's fair," says Varric. "But I will never write another book about you and Death Wish if you don't."

"Wait, what've you written about us already?"

"Nothing! Nothing."

"Varric…"

"C'mon, Sunshine, trust me on this one. I'm not selling anybody out."

"Not even Seeker Pentaghast?"

"'Draste's ass, I knew there was a Hawke underneath all that magic and niceness," Varric dramatically wipes his eyes. "Your sister would be so proud!"

"She'd never let either of us live it down, Varric, and you _know_ it."

"That's true, too," Varric says. He groans. "I'm getting too old for this, Sunshine."

"You're never too old to fall in love."

"Nah, not that. This," he says, gestures vaguely around them, to the glitz and the glint of the Winter Palace. "Not my scene, you know?"

Bethany's gaze settles on Alistair's shoulders. He's rubbing the back of his neck the way he's always wont to do when he's uncomfortable. Of all the things that the Winter Palace could bring out in her husband, _discomfort_ is the one that Bethany expected the most, and likes the least.

And maybe Varric knows that, too, the strain of wanting simply to go home and sleep for a while. It's all well and good to tease him about Seeker Pentaghast, and undoubtedly Marian would be properly insulted if she ever finds out that Varric didn't tell her _first_ , but—

The Winter Palace has magic all its own. Dangerous and beautiful in equal measure.

Bethany leans more of her weight against Varric's shoulder.

It murmurs: _I understand_.

Bethany won't tell her sister what's happened here, tonight. Not all of it, anyway; she thinks of the _Tale of the Champion_ , and all the stories that Varric never told anyone, and all of the secrets he keeps.

It won't cost her, to keep one for him.

"…I suppose terrifying can be attractive, in some lights," Bethany says, after a moment's contemplation.

"Sunshine?"

"Yes?"

"What did I ever do to you?"

Bethany laughs, high and clear, the sound rising like golden bubbles in expensive mead. Alistair turns to blink over at them at the sound of it; Bethany watches all of her husband's features go soft and fond, and she's near dazzled by it.

"Varric, I—"

"Yeah, yeah," Varric says. He waves her off. "Your Death Wish wants your attention, I know. Go on. I know you can't help it. Get gone, Sunshine."

There is _nothing_ quite like losing an argument to Varric Tethras, Bethany thinks, bemused, as she does as she's told. There's nothing quite like it at all.

Alistair's whole face lights up as Bethany crosses the floor. He wastes no times; he abandons the others to scoop her out of the air, patently, charmingly oblivious to the way half of the vestibule turns to stare at them. His arms go 'round her waist and she presses her face into his neck, and suddenly everything is right again in the world.

("Merde," she hears muttered from under Sister Leliana's breath. She sounds like she's just lost a bet. Bethany doesn't even want to know.)

Alistair smiles at her.

It is _devasting_.

"Hello, love. Had enough of Varric's teasing, have you?"

"Mmmn, more like he had enough of mine," Bethany murmurs. She can feel his heart beneath his clothes, the steady beat. Andraste. It's the only thing that feels like home.

Alistair presses his mouth against her hair. "Oh?"

Bethany sighs. "I don't think he appreciated my pointing out his crush on Seeker Pentaghast. He seemed a little put out?"

He snorts a laugh. "Maker's breath, Beth, of course he was. You weren't supposed to _tell_ him about it!"

"What was I supposed to do, then? Tell him later?"

"Well, yes."

Bethany's mouth curls up against Alistair's collarbone. "Sometimes I think you like Varric more than you like me."

"If that were the case, I'd have married him by now," Alistair points out, mildly.

(" _Merde_ ," Bethany hears, again. "Does it ever stop?"

A pause like a breath.

"No. You're going to owe that dwarf so much money. You brought this on yourself, you know, I told you not to," says Ser Cullen.

For all that Bethany can barely hear him, she knows that stiff look he gets when he's trying not to be peevish. She'd send them both shocks for the impertinence, but frankly they're fairly easy to ignore. Terrible, the both of them, and if they owe Varric money, then they _absolutely_ deserve it!)

"And you married me, instead."

"Says something decent about my taste, doesn't it?"

Bethany laughs. "Oh, if _that's_ the case, then—"

"It always is, love," Alistair tells her. His eyes are very warm. He stands so, so close, and it takes all of Bethany's not-inconsiderable willpower to keep from curling up against him in front of all these people and throwing caution to the proverbial wind. The Inquisition needs him, but the Inquisition always needs him. The question, as ever, is who needs him _more_.

And, as ever, the Inquisition wins out.

"Lady Montilyet is about to come over here," Bethany murmurs.

"How can you tell?" asks Alistair. There is genuinely curiosity in his voice; he turns just enough to see Lady Montilyet across the room, so high-strung that she looks about to vibrate off the ground into flight.

"It's either that, or she's going to start screaming?"

Alistair grumbles something intensely exasperated under his breath that Bethany doesn't catch. He blows all the breath out of his lungs.

"Shite," he mutters darkly. "You know, Beth, I hate it when you're right."

"Why?"

"Because you're always right about things that I'd rather not deal with. Maker's breath, here I was, thinking we could go _one night_ without a disaster. Will you be alright on your own, for a bit?"

"I could use some fresh air," Bethany smiles up at him.

"You are far too good for me," Alistair says, fervently. He kisses her quick and warm and lovely as candlelight. "Don't disappear for long, love. I'll come find you when Josephine doesn't look like—well, like _that_."

Bethany watches him dash off. He's never loud, Alistair; he always moves with a kind of quiet, deadly efficiency that used to be so at odds with the sunnily self-deprecating disposition. It's what used to make him such a good templar; there were times he'd be out of bed and halfway through clasping his regalia on before Bethany was even awake.

It was also probably what made him such a terrible templar, too, now that Bethany thinks about it. She catches the way he glances back over his shoulder at her, anxiety at the leaving.

Yes, _definitely_ what made him such a terrible templar.

And so Bethany wanders.

She passes through the Winter Palace's glittering hallways, quiet as a ghost. She's a shadow-creature; no one pays her any attention. The Inquisition's all-seeing eye is worked in gold thread into the diamond-point edges of her cuffs, and maybe this is what keeps people away.

But she hears: _Lady Hawke_ and _mage rebellion_ and _sister to the Champion_ , so maybe it's not the Inquisition at all. No matter how far Bethany goes, she's realized that there's no escaping Marian's shadow.

It's a good thing that Bethany doesn't mind.

(Oh, Maker, Carver would _hate_ it here.)

She makes her way out onto the terraces, dragging her fingertips along the wall. The night air filters down cool and clear as fresh dew over Bethany's shoulders. The din from inside is faint out here on the terraces, and it's nice, for a moment, to allow herself to breathe.

Five minutes to herself never goes amiss, even when she's not bound to worrying about her children.

Not that that ever really stops, of course, but—

Still.

A breath, just for herself.

"Lady Hawke? Might I have a moment of your time?"

(Well, so much for that.)

Bethany startles out of her thoughts, glancing over her shoulder to find a tall, slim blonde woman smiling neutrally in the doorway. She is dressed very simply, for all the luxurious fabric; her accent is Ferelden. And she holds herself—it's very reminiscent of how _Mother_ holds herself, actually, now that Bethany thinks about it. The easy grace and the steel rod for a spine, it's all the same.

The manners kick in. Unlike some people, _Alistair_ , Bethany wasn't raised in a barn.

"Please," Bethany says, indicates the open space all around her. "I'm sorry, this is terribly rude of me, but I don't know your name."

The woman laughs. "No, you wouldn't. We haven't been introduced."

Bethany waits. She's very good at it, waiting. Maker knows, but she's had practise; waiting is as ingrained as breathing, or magic, or loving Alistair. It's a part of her.

And so: Bethany waits.

"My name is Anora," the woman says. A funny little smile works its way across her face; it's as though she'd expected Bethany to break first, and is pleasantly surprised that she didn't.

"It's lovely to meet you," Bethany says. "I suppose I must have missed your introduction. We did come in rather late in the evening, but my husband prefers fresh air; he wanted to stay out in the gardens as long as we could. Where are you from?"

"Denerim," says the lady. "And believe me, you didn't miss much. I had no introduction to speak of."

"Oh? Really?"

"Mm, yes. You might call me a liaison for the Ferelden crown; I have a rather _vested_ interest in Celene remaining Empress, you see. We're—wary, you could say, of Gaspard's intentions. He rather likes to think himself an expansionist."

"I'd imagine that would make the crown nervous, yes."

"You'd not be wrong," Lady Anora agrees, her mouth curling upwards sardonically. She pauses to look Bethany over. The Winter Palace hovers around them soft as feathers, sharp as knives; Bethany doesn't know what she's expecting.

But there's nothing.

"So, what can I do for you, Lady Anora?"

"Do?" the woman raises an eyebrow. "You needn't _do_ anything. I suppose I simply hadn't expected so much of the Inquisition's leadership to be Fereldan, given the circumstances, that's all."

"The Inquisition is on Ferelden soil," Bethany says, slowly. A voice in the back of her head that sounds like Marian whispers: _tread lightly, Bethy_. "Does it surprise you?"

"Oh, you misunderstand. I don't disapprove. Quite the contrary, in fact," says Lady Anora. Her mouth curls ever closer to true amusement. "Your Inquisitor is a busy woman. I don't think she's stopped moving all night."

 _She's too young to have to deal with this_ , Bethany doesn't say, although the words sit raw and thick in her throat. There's too much sitting on Lady Lavellan's slim shoulders, too many responsibilities, too many _lives_. And it's not fair, it's really not fair, to expect a Dalish First to solve all of humanity's problems.

She's nothing like Merrill at all, Lady Lavellan, but Bethany doesn't doubt that they'd get along without all of the stumbling that they're both prone to when there are humans about.

Andraste, but Bethany misses Merrill.

"She won't have, no," Bethany says. It comes out a little hoarse, and she swallows back the sudden wave of grief.

Grief is so difficult. She never knows who she's feeling it _for_.

"Hawke isn't a very common name. Chasind, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is."

"You don't look much like your brother, if you don't mind my saying so,"

"He's my twin," Bethany corrects, automatic, and then shakes herself for the lost footing. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean—how do you know my brother? Carver's not very…"

"I've met him, once or twice," the lady allows, with a smile that could coax a recalcitrant cat. She truly _must_ have met him; it seems as though she knows exactly what Bethany is going to say about Carver Hawke's general disposition. Surly, at best. "But the Warden-Commander spoke highly of him, and I do tend to trust her judgement."

 _Carver talked about her_ , Bethany doesn't say. The Hero of Ferelden is a strange topic, in an Orlesian palace; she's not sure what Lady Anora wants from the conversation. There's something there, beneath the surface, but Bethany can't touch it.

It's there—

But it's not.

"If you want to know about my sister, you can just say so," Bethany says. She stares straight, doesn't move her jaw, looking out into the dark and stormy sky. The clouds roil, bubbling with the beginnings of purple-white lightning that crackles through the air. It prickles against Bethany's skin, pebbling into gooseflesh.

"That's what most people ask about, I suppose?"

"She _did_ start a war," Bethany murmurs, in an odd echo of Alistair earlier. "Not many people can say that about their sisters."

"Not many people can say that about anyone they know, at all," Lady Anora replies. Out of the corner of her eye, Bethany watches the woman study the sky, choosing her next words carefully. "You left during the Blight?"

"A lot of people did," Bethany says. She remembers Lothering's fields, brown and brittle as dry straw, and all the refugees that came with it. They reach out through the ancient halls of time and memory with sharpened claws, hollow cheeks, hollow eyes, hollow hands.

Bethany has to shake off her ghosts.

"More than anyone would have liked, I think," Lady Anora murmurs. She raises a hand to tuck blonde hair away from her entirely bare face; Bethany thinks that the Orlesians could learn a thing or two about poise from this woman. If they carry their fear in their body, Lady Anora carries her lack of it just the same.

The words shiver away on the breeze.

"Marian thought it best," Bethany shrugs, tips her head back and forth at the sky. "We took ship from Gwaren, made it to Kirkwall. I'm assuming you've read Varric's _Tale of the Champion_. He only lied a little bit, but really, it's Varric. You have to expect a lie or two."

Quiet, again, but only for a moment.

"I grew up there," Lady Anora says.

"Pardon?"

"Gwaren. I grew up there," the woman says again. "But I haven't been back since I was a child. Does the sunset still turn the Amaranthine to liquid fire?"

"Yes. We were only there for a few days, but I'd never seen the ocean, before."

Lady Anora smiles. It's the first real smile that Bethany's seen out of her, she realizes; it blooms across the lady's face like a sunrise, slow and pale with joy. "There's nothing like the Amaranthine."

"Why haven't you gone back?"

"Duty calls us away from the places that we love," Lady Anora says, very quietly. She looks at Bethany out of the corner of her eye. "You would know that, Lady Hawke, wouldn't you? You _are_ here, after all."

"I—yes, I suppose so."

Lady Anora regards Bethany for a long, unbroken moment that hangs fragile as morning sunlight through clear glass between them. Bethany doesn't know what she finds in the measure, but it must be something.

(It's always something.)

She looks to be about to say something else, but as Bethany waits for it, the woman cuts herself off before the words make it out into the open air.

The woman dips her golden head. "I appreciate you taking the time, Lady Hawke. I'm sure I've taken up enough of yours. I'll leave you to your thoughts."

And before Bethany can say anything more, Lady Anora floats off.

Silent as flower petals caught on a breeze.

—

"Maker's bloody breath, _there_ you are, I've been looking an hour!"

"I-I'm sorry?"

Alistair catches Bethany up when she finally returns to the ballroom, relief at the sight of her morphing to concern as he takes stock. The emotion etches itself deep into his face, pulls down his lines into sobriety. "Are you alright, love? What's happened?"

Bethany collapses against him with a great, garbled sigh, her head to his collarbone, trying to breath. Everything about him is familiar, in this moment; familiar and perfect, and the love of him clenches around her lungs tight as a vice.

"I'm fine," she manages.

"You don't _look_ fine…" Alistair trails off, inspecting her a second time. "Beth, honestly, what happened?"

"Nothing," she says, because it really _was_ nothing, for all that it's left her with ghosts and shivers in her bones. Lady Anora. Ferelden's crown. Nothing; nothing at all. "Nothing, really, it's fine."

"Beth…"

"I'll tell you about it later," Bethany says into his chest. It's nice to have his arms around her, all solid and warm and feeling like a home. "How's everyone out here?"

"Leliana's having the time of her Maker-forsaken life," Alistair mutters. "She's got the Inquisitor running all over the place collecting _blackmail_ for her. Bloody hell, there's no helping either of them."

A tiny little slip of a laugh escapes Bethany's throat. "And the others?"

"Josephine's bouncing off the walls because she's gone right mental," Alistair says, rather fondly. "And Cullen's—well, he's over there. Being harassed by Orlesians, last I checked."

Bethany peeks over Alistair's shoulder, and finds that indeed, Ser Cullen is looking about as huntedly, horrifically uncomfortable as Bethany has ever seen him. He's hiding in a corner with his back to the walls, arms crossed over his chest, cringing away from the crowd of people that seem to be _hovering_ around him.

"Oh, Andraste, that's dreadful," Bethany breathes. "Oughtn't we go save him? Alistair, he looks _miserable_!"

Alistair crooks an eyebrow good-naturedly. "How do you suppose we do that, love? I haven't seen the less-terrifying Trevelyan all right. I think she's hiding? Smart girl, actually, we ought to go hide somewhere ourselves."

Bethany pokes him sharply in the ticklish spot high on his ribs, and is immensely pleased when she _squawks_ and cringes away.

"Hey! You promised not to exploit that!"

"And _you_ promised not to be so terrible about poor Ser Cullen. It's not his fault he's like that, you know!"

"Yes, I'm a bad, bad man," Alistair says. He _smirks_ at her, the crooked edges of his grin shading into wickedness. "You like it."

"You're very smug, did you know?" Bethany asks, breathless with it. Mirth bubbles in her stomach, a welcome distraction, and she stands up on her toes to seal them together mouth-to-mouth. It only lasts a second; she forces herself to pull away, twines her arm through his, and steers them determinedly away from the ballroom.

"You've said, yes," Alistair agrees, _very smugly_ because he hasn't an ounce of shame in his entire body. He frankly couldn't care less who sees them, but he allows her the want for privacy. "And you still like it."

Bethany doesn't deny this.

He's not _wrong_.

But the Grand Library is unlocked, the royal blue doors cracked to yawning. The Winter Palace's vestibule is empty as it's been all night, and Bethany tugs Alistair into the dark and the quiet, high above the ballroom and all the more lovely for how lonely it is. The door _clicks_ closed behind them, and then they're alone.

She's not going to crawl into his lap in front of three quarters of Orlais' ruling class.

She might do it when they're on their own in the Grand Library, however.

Bethany leans forwards to press her face into the crook of Alistair's neck, breathing in skin and soap. The acrid bite of metal is replaced by the faint sweet luster of cotton. It freezes her insides, how much she misses it.

"I wish you were wearing armour," Bethany whispers into his ear, so low.

"If it's any consolation, so do I," Alistair murmurs. His eyes are soft, and he pulls her an impossible inch closer, arms closing a little tighter around her waist. "But we can't all have what we want all the time, love. Besides, this way I don't have to be so careful when we're like this! I can't hurt you! Bright sides!"

"That's not a very good bright side," Bethany says. "I'd rather have to be careful than have you stabbed, Alistair."

"Demanding about my safety tonight, are you?"

"Says the man who threw a fit every time I wouldn't him go somewhere without me."

"That's different."

"How?"

Alistair pulls back to stare down at her for what feels like a hundred years. His face is frighteningly serious, a measure in candlelight and shimmering gold that buries itself inside Bethany's ribs, ratcheting up into her throat to ache between her teeth. She holds that quiet, serious look like a flower in her mouth, and swallows it down to let it settle in her heart, so raw that a cool breeze smarts.

He grins at her. "Come on, Beth. You're the best thing that ever happened to me. I can't just go and let you get hurt. Not on my account."

Oh, _Alistair_.

Bethany reaches up to lace her arms around his neck. She pulls him down enough that they're eye-to-eye, matched clothes and colours and all the other things that exist.

It's like putting her heart between her teeth and hoping for the best, loving this man.

"It's the same for me, Alistair," Bethany whispers, half-ragged with the truth of it. "Andraste. You know it is."

Alistair ducks his face to the curve of her neck. Presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the think skin over her pulse.

"I know," her mutters into the _th-thump_ of her heart. It seems they're both always doing it, always trying to get so _close_. "I know, but I can't—not you, Beth, love. Not you."

And Bethany understands. Her spine cracks a little sickly as she takes his weight; there's contentedness to the doing, to letting him know that she can carry him, if he needs to be carried. She curls a hand into his hair, tugging gently, an anchor to draw him back to shore.

Much as she wishes they were anywhere else, the Winter Palace is not the kind of place where one has the luxury of falling apart.

"I love you," Bethany sighs.

"And thank the Maker for that," Alistair says, shudders, draws closer even still. Bethany is fiercely glad for the relative privacy of the Grand Library; even though they definitely are not supposed to be here, it's given them both a moment to breathe and recentre. She doesn't know which of them needs it more, right now: her for the holding, or Alistair for the being held/

Maybe it's both. They always are too desperate for one another.

But it's not like the quakings of the early days, when all they'd each _had_ was each other. This is edged in the soft pale sigh of sweet choice.

 _You. I will always choose you_.

They cling to each other for a long, long time. Long enough that Alistair manages to bodily manhandle Bethany into one of the squishy chairs that overlook the ballroom floor; he settles her in his lap, and they watch the colourful swirl and sway of the dancers below together.

Bethany would be perfectly happy to sit here for the rest of the evening, just like this, and not have to say a word. Alistair winds her curls around his fingers, that old, contented habit he picked up somewhere between Lothering and Lowtown and never really stopped.

She turns her face into his hands.

Kisses his palm.

"Shining, shimmering, splendid, still as beautiful as the first day I saw her. She's everything. I'll die if something happens to her. Maker, that can't be healthy, but I don't care."

Bethany blinks.

Alistair, on the other hand, only groans. He closes his eyes for a second longer than a standard blink. "Cole, _must_ you do that?"

"Yes. Am I not supposed to?"

"Not when she's sitting on top of me!"

"But you want her to know. I know you must, you think about it all the time?"

Bethany blinks some more. A boy melts out of the shadows. He's pale as moonlight, dressed in black, wearing a large floppy hat over a fringe of blond hair near the same shade as his skin, and there is nothing but confusion in his face. "I don't understand."

Alistair sighs heavily, deeply put upon, but also—not upset, Bethany doesn't think. Exasperated, perhaps, the same way he gets when Liana and Carina have done something that he's trying not to be endeared by.

"Come meet Beth, Cole," Alistair says. "You might as well. She's the one I'm always thinking about."

"Hello," says the boy. He shifts his weight back and forth, doesn't quite look in her the face. He can't be older than twenty. Before she can say anything, or even smile, he opens his mouth again. "Quiet, have to be quiet, if it's quiet no one will know. Keep close, counting three little heads, one sovereign, two sovereign, three night sky, they're all so young and I love them so _must_ —"

Bethany raises her eyebrows.

 _Well_.

"He does it to everyone," Alistair says into her ear. He's _grinning_ , because he is terrible. "That was rather pointed, though, Beth. All I think about is you, and all you think about is our children? I don't know how I feel about that. Seems a bit unfair."

"Hush," Bethany prods him sharply with her elbow.

Alistair hushes, cheerfully.

"Oh," Cole says, startling a little. "They're looking for you. They want to know if you're alright. I can tell them you are, if you want to stay. It's quiet, here."

Alistair glances down at Bethany. That last bit was for her, they both know. Cole ducks a little, shrinking into himself; he nearly disappears entirely. It's a talent Bethany herself would have given almost anything to have had at her fingertips, growing up.

Oh, but she's not so young, anymore.

"We should probably go make sure Ser Cullen isn't sobbing in a corner," Bethany says, a little wry. "He's worse off than we are."

"And how is that _my_ problem?"

"did you or did you not tell him that throwing himself at Lady Evelyn's mercy might put her off?"

Alistair is not impressed by this rebuttal. "I wasn't wrong. He wanted to write _poetry_. About her eyes! It wasn't even good—oh, Cole's gone. You know, sometimes I think he and Mal would get along."

Bethany smiles into his shoulder. Oh, Alistair. "They might. We'll see, when we get home. But did Ser Cullen really write poetry?"

"Yes," says Alistair. "He made me listen to it. It was awful. I was doing him a favour, Beth, really, I promise."

The smile turns into a laugh, high and clear as bell. "You enjoyed crushing his dreams, didn't you?"

" _Absolutely_."

Bethany tucks her face into Alistair's chest to smother down the mirth, or to quiet it, at the very least. "You know," she says, "if you were anyone else, I'd call that very cruel."

"It _was_ cruel," Alistair grins. "I laughed in his face and didn't apologize for it."

His heartbeat is very steady beneath Bethany's ear, slow and rhythmic as the waves of the Waking Sea breaking on the rocky shores of the Wounded Coast. For one dreamy, heart-stopping moment, Bethany thinks she can smell the sea.

But then it's gone, and there is only Alistair's collarbone beneath her lips and the Winter Palace around them, and the iridescent, far-away strains of music rising from the ballroom.

"I don't think you could be cruel if you tried," Bethany murmurs.

"Says the girl what married me."

"And I'd do it again, too, if I had the choice."

Alistair blinks very rapidly. "Maker. Really?"

"Yes."

"Even when I'm being a fool?"

" _Yes_ , Alistair."

He stares down at her, expression grave, for a very long time in the halflight. He touches her curls, painfully careful, so gentle that every breath _aches_. Alistair inhales tightly, closes his eyes for something that might be like courage. "After—after all this is done, Beth, will you marry me again? Properly, this time, like we ought to have in the first place."

"If you want," Bethany says, lips curving up into something private and soft. "But I _do_ think we're properly married, anyway."

"We are, but I still—I do. Want to, that is. I want to," Alistair says, quietly. He dips his head down to catch the very edge of her smile.

 _Oh_ , Bethany thinks. _Oh, Alistair_.

She doesn't know how she ends up splayed across his lap, his hips caged between her knees and her fingers knotted in his hair, kissing so furiously it blots out the world. Alistair's hands bite into her thighs, long clever fingers tucking beneath the bunch of skirts to find warm skin, and Bethany can't help the sound that slides out of her.

"Maker," Alistair manages around a groan. "I'm going to tear this thing off you when we get home—"

Bethany is halfway to agreeing with him, the beautiful fabric beneath her fingers ready to burn without flame if it means he'll put his mouth back on her.

And a bell tolls.

The sound rings clear through the palace, something like a call to arms. Alistair jerks beneath her, absolute dread in the lines of him. He wraps her closer, as though that will somehow stall the clanging passage of time. It _is_ a call to arms.

The Inquisition will have its due.

"No," Alistair groans. "I don't _want_ to," and he buries his face in the side of her throat, teeth grazing the skin there. Her breath catches, slick between the thighs, and she can feel the way he smirks about it. Damn him, he always _knows_. "They can't make me, Beth."

"I don't think that's the way this works," Bethany laughs, breathless and very soft into his ear. She's too hot, wanting to crawl out of her skin, but Alistair's no better: he's looking very glazed, but Bethany supposes that this isn't a huge change from how he's looking most of the night.

(They _have_ snuck off to nearly undress each other more than once.)

"Don't care," Alistair growls, as the bell continues to toll. It's getting late. An hour to tenth toll, already. Liana and Carina will have finally just been convinced to crawl into bed. Malcolm will have gone hours ago; Bethany has no idea how _Malcolm_ is the only one of her children with the sense to value his sleep.

"What happened to rescuing Ser Cullen?"

"That was _your_ idea, and I did say I thought he deserved it," Alistair points out. "And you sat on me. When are you going to learn that's always going to distract me? Because it does, you know, you're so _soft_ , Beth—"

Bethany squirms away from him, giggling. "You know I'm ticklish, Alistair, quit it!"

"That _is_ why I do it," he says, grinning unrepentantly. "And you're pretty when you laugh like that."

She stops squirming. Alistair's sort of—gone _still_ , very gently stroking his thumb over the curve of her cheek. Bethany finds herself leaning into the touch, helpless beneath the pull of it.

Andraste, he always makes her feel so _much_.

The bell tolls again.

"We're going to be late," Bethany murmurs.

"Late for what?"

" _Alistair_."

Alistair heaves a sigh. "Fine. Up you get, then, love. Let's go save Cullen from the handsy Orlesians while we still can."

—

As it turns out, saving Ser Cullen from the handsy Orlesians is easier said than done.

"I hate you _both_ ," Ser Cullen manages. He's looking rather hunted around the eyes, the skin there taut and white with stress. "You went off together and—Maker, I don't know, _made another child_ —"

"Didn't," Alistair cuts in, cheerfully. "Beth wouldn't let me try!"

"—and I have stood here, waiting for the Inquisitor to finish dancing with Lady Florianne—"

Bethany and Alistair wait very patiently for Ser Cullen to rant himself out, arm-in-arm. When he finally trails off, misery etched into his face, Bethany makes a decision.

"Come dance with me," Bethany says, very firmly. Ser Cullen is shaking, and looks like he's about to absolutely eviscerate the next person who so much as breathes at him wrong. Worse, he looks like he might start crying.

Andraste, no one wants to see that.

Ser Cullen is already shaking his head. "I—I shouldn't, I have avoided it all night, someone might think—"

"That wasn't an invitation, Ser Cullen," Bethany says, still very firm. She tucks her palm into his elbow and leads him, entirely no-nonsense, out onto the ballroom floor. The sudden movement of eyes to the back of her neck is easy to ignore.

(Maker. _Orlesians_. They've no _tact_.)

He doesn't fight her an inch, and she can feel the knots in his shoulders go down with every step.

"You're getting more like Lady Leandra every day, Bethany," Ser Cullen says. He's very quiet for a moment, and when he speaks next, his voice is ragged with relief. "Thank you."

Bethany hums. It's not an insult, coming from Ser Cullen; he's used to Mother sorting him out, and if anything, he's come to expect it. If it were anyone one, she might be hurt; her Mother is her Mother, and Lady Leandra Hawke is nothing if not formidable. Andraste knows that Mother does whatever she wants, and she _did_ raise Marian.

As it is, it's just Ser Cullen, and Bethany is willing to take it for what it is.

And Bethany has seen him worse than this, but not by much.

(She supposes, though, that Orlesians don't really have anything on the Gallows when they were under Knight-Commander Meredith's half-mad gaze. Orlesians didn't murder twenty-seven mage children, or if they did, Ser Cullen doesn't blame himself for it. There aren't many things worse in the world, at all.)

Ser Cullen is a _terrible_ dancer when he's uncomfortable.

"Breathe," Bethany reminds him, gentle. He's so very stiff; far too aware of the hundreds of gazes turned abruptly on the back of his neck. The tightness to his shoulders is so sharp it's painful to look at, and Bethany is reminded of the awful, wild panic that used to seize her as a child, before she'd entirely gotten a handle on her magic.

There are days when she still feels like that, of course, but it's—less so, now, in a world not cupped in the Chantry's greedy palms.

Her magic doesn't feel so much like a death sentence.

There are no more templars to make it one.

A moment of twelve later, there is a marked difference in Ser Cullen. He's concentrating on the steps and not on the shaking in her hands, Bethany thinks. The other dancers swirl past them, too busy in their own orbits to pay the pair of them any attention; a blur of silk and laughing, gilt mouths beneath porcelain masks.

Lady Lavellan is still dancing with Lady Florianne. Bethany only catches sight of the girl out of the corner of her eye, but she thinks that the Inquisitor must be absolutely exhausted.

(Andraste, that'll be half the Inquisition that needs saving. Where's Varric when you need him?)

But the Inquisitor isn't the only one that looks exhausted. Ser Cullen doesn't seem to be about to burst into tears, anymore, but there is still—there's _something_ , although for the life of her, Bethany couldn't name it.

Loneliness, maybe.

He's very good, at loneliness.

"Have you spoken to Lady Pentaghast at all? Or Varric?"

"I have not seen anyone all evening," Ser Cullen says, perhaps a touch gloomily. "I have been—well—"

"You stood in that corner all night, didn't you," Bethany asks, but it's not really a question. At Ser Cullen's answering wince, she makes a face. "Oh, Cullen, why?"

"It kept people away."

"Even Lady Evelyn?"

"I didn't mean for _her_ to keep away," Ser Cullen swallows hard around the words. "She's—"

"If it's any consolation, I think she's hiding from everyone," Bethany says, not unkindly. She thinks of the perfect stillness of the library, Alistair's hands on her hips and how good it had felt, how _right_ to have him all to herself so far away from home.

Thinks, a little wryly, that Ser Cullen could use that kind of rest.

Bethany regards him for a quiet moment as they dip away from one another—the demands of the _gigue lourée_ —and then return. Very softly, beneath her rising violin crescendo, she says, "You ought to tell her you're in love with her."

"I ought to do a lot of things," Ser Cullen says.

"But will you?"

Ser Cullen doesn't answer her. It's better than Bethany had expected; she'd expected him to outright deny it, and thank the Maker, he didn't. _Progress_ , Alistair would say, chortling absolutely _awfully_ because that is, unfortunately, just the way Bethany's husband _is_.

(It is a wonder they're friends. Honestly, poor Ser Cullen.)

The music rises up to the rafters, crests open-winged and full, glowing molten gold as the orchestra leads them through the steps.

Slowly, slowly, it fades.

And so, too, does the dance.

Ser Cullen escorts Bethany back to his corner as the last strains of notes becomes a golden fall of applause. Alistair is leaning against the wall, a very strange look on his face. Bethany tucks herself into his side with a tiny noise of deep contentment, too low for anyone else to hear.

It really always is like coming home.

Bethany tips her head up to brush her mouth against Alistair's jaw like an afterthought. She can feel the way he smiles beneath it, the pull of muscles old and familiar, and it settles in her chest glowing like an ember.

It's the little things that get them through.

But back on solid ground with nothing to distract him, already Ser Cullen is beginning to freeze up and fracture apart. His mouth is a thin white like stark in his face.

"The library's open," Alistair says, rather unexpectedly. He's staring at Ser Cullen, frowning just a little, eyebrows pulling faintly together. An intense study; Bethany wonders if Alistair sees the same thing she does. "No one will bother you there, mater. Might do you some good."

A fierce wave of affection wells up in Bethany's chest. Only Alistair. _Only Alistair_ would look at the tightening to Ser Cullen's expression and offer the exact same thing that Bethany herself would offer in the way of relief; only Alistair would even think of it like that.

"But if something—" Ser Cullen starts, thick in the throat.

"If something happens, we'll know where to find you," Alistair cuts him off again, but it's a gentle thing, now. There's only kindness to the words, nothing sharp, nothing sarcastic. Nothing to cut. Nothing to hurt.

They're friends, too.

And… looking after one another is what friends _do_.

Ser Cullen shuffles his weight back and forth. There is a peripheral _hovering_ on the edges of Bethany's awareness; a strange crowd all holding their breaths, waiting for the moment the good Commander is again alone. They want his attention, Bethany realizes; they want his attention the Bethany herself wants _Alistair's_ attention. It might have been a bad thing, that she dragged him out to dance; now they'll never leave him alone, not now that he's proven he could.

But they likely wouldn't have left him alone, regardless.

"Are you sure no one's there?" Ser Cullen asks, deadly quiet and urgent. "Are you _sure_?"

"Just Cole, but he hardly counts," Alistair says, very fairly. "Maker's balls, _go_ , would you? I'll promise we'll send your Trevelyan after you, if we see her."

Ser Cullen opens his mouth rather like a dying fish. "You—why do I find that reassuring?"

"Because he means it," says Bethany, softly, smiling at him. They're all shadow-dark in the golden spill of light from the chandeliers, shivery and shining. Alistair's palm comes up to curl at the small of her back, thumb pressing into the divot at the base of her spine.

"I—" Ser Cullen stops, pauses to inhale sharply. "Thank you."

"Why are you thanking her? It wasn't her idea."

"Because Lady Bethany is nicer to me than you are," Ser Cullen says. "That's why."

"Twat," Alistair says, extraordinarily fond.

Bethany jabs her elbow into her husband's side for the third time in what feels like an hour. There is a _line_ , Alistair.

But it's not a line that Alistair ever bothered to pay any attention to, even when they had the excuse of being too young to know better. He blows right past it, and doesn't look back.

Ser Cullen was always more careful, that way, Bethany thinks, but at the same time—

She'll still never know what it was like, walking into the Gallows every morning, day after day, year after year, and always knowing that at any moment, if the wrong person were to find out, he would lose her. Bethany doesn't even know why Alistair _bothered_ , when it was always such a bloody risk.

But he did, and even when the Gallows had tried to swallow him whole, he'd still found ways to come back to her.

Giving Ser Cullen an out, Bethany knows, is exactly the same thing. Alistair has an awful habit of making himself bleed so that the people he loves _needn't_.

Sometimes she wishes that he wasn't so painfully selfless, but there's never not a moment where she isn't grateful for it.

Ser Cullen goes, sneaking away under cover of the pale blue shadows in through the windows and the beginning of another round of the orchestra, and Bethany is left to lean against her husband in a ballroom full of Orlesians. It strikes her how intensely she adores him; it scares her, a little. Alistair makes a broken-off sound at the back of his throat.

Bethany blinks up at him.

He stares at her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Bethany asks.

"I didn't know you liked dancing," Alistair says, looping his arms around her, easy as breathing. "I didn't even know you knew how, Beth."

"Oh," Bethany says, blinking up at him. The strange look from before is back, now that Ser Cullen is gone and there's no one around that Alistair cares to hide himself from. There's only her, and a sea of faceless masks behind. "Mother taught all of us. I'm surprised I still remember how, honestly; I haven't had much reason to practise."

(The long Lothering winters roar. Firelight aglow crackling red-gold in the hearth, Mother clapping time, Father laughing, and the mummers come Wintersend, their minstrels and their songs. For a moment the recollection is so visceral that Bethany could be standing by the fire in the dim and dusk with the freezing winter night outside, the snow glittering and cold. The family she'd grown up with, held precious in her memory.)

Alistair chucks her chin up, so that they can look each other in the eye. "I'm sorry, love."

"What?" Bethany asks. "Why?"

"Because you clearly enjoy it, and I've two left feet."

She shakes her head. "I do, but I'd rather stand here with you than dance with someone I don't know."

"Still," he murmurs. Alistair's expression darkens, just slightly, and Bethany doesn't know, but it sticks in her craw. "I wish I'd learned."

"Mother could teach other, I'm sure," Bethany tells him. Her mother's apprentice school is half a finishing education as it is; Andraste knows that Leandra Hawke would kill a man to willingly have the chance to instruct her son-in-law (and the Inquisition's Commander, which is likely the more important bit) in social niceties. "Although I can't imagine you'd enjoy it. She _is_ my mother."

Alistair chuckles, the sound low and drawn from deep inside his chest. It shivers over Bethany's skin, like a ripple in clear water. "I'd rather have _you_ teach me, Beth. Sounds safer, I must admit."

"There aren't many things more dangerous," Bethany agrees. "Mari, maybe."

"Darkspawn," Alistair counters.

"Are darkspawn really worse than my sister?"

"…You make a decent argument, love."

Bethany knows that Marian could joke away all manner of things, or kill them in the absence of the joking, but there's no joking away the damned Blight. There was only running, and hoping that they didn't drown in an ocean storm, and then there was Kirkwall. There was no joking that away.

There's no joking away a hole in the sky, either.

Alistair presses his mouth to Bethany's temple. "It could be worse, you know. Can you imagine Orlesian darkspawn? Maker, what a nightmare!"

She laughs. Maker, she can't help it, Alistair's always making her laugh. "You might want to keep your voice down. Think about where we are?"

His smile becomes a little fixed. "I keep trying not to think about it, thanks, love. The last thing I want is an Orlesian war-monger on the throne."

Bethany doesn't like the possibility of it, either. She likes Ferelden, with its bitterherb resilience and its hard-won pride. Even when they go back to Kirkwall—Ferelden is still _home_.

Home: the wild places where a mage could hide in the Hinterlands, the forest set alight with autumn around them. Home: Liana and Carina holding court in Haven in the brilliant afternoon, the sun refracting off the snow. Home: Lothering, with its dry grass and its little Chantry and all the songs that Bethany had long thought she'd forgotten. Ferelden is many things, but all of them are empty of people and all of them are safe.

And she's certainly not the only one.

(Bethany thinks about Lady Anora, and wonders.)

The night's worn on too long. The dress is still the most beautiful thing she's ever touched and Alistair is still so handsome in black and gold that it leaves her without air in her lungs. There is a part of her, still, that revels in his nearness, in the simple openness in the regard they have for one another. She is no mage in hiding and he is not templar. They're a strikingly lovely couple in Inquisition colours, and no more.

But—

Home. Bethany wants to go _home_. She wants the twins and Mal within reach, the sleepy-warm comfort of knowing that her children are close enough to touch should the sky decide to tear open again.

It's happened once already. She won't put it past the sky to not happen again. Maker, but Bethany isn't that optimistic.

Or that lucky, for that matter.

Bethany tips her head up to catch Alistair's mouth for one single, shimmering split-second.

And then, in a move that would absolutely delight Bethany's older sister, Lady Lavellan comes crashing through a wall, wild-eyed and smelling of smoke, and _forces_ the world to move forwards.

—

"You know, I think we work well together," Alistair says, very cheerfully for a man who just witnessed a slim elven woman decide the fate of the world's largest nation. "Up you get, Beth, there's a love."

Bethany half-stumbles into the carriage, content to let Alistair arrange her as he pleases.

Andraste, it's sad almost to the point of comedy, how she can't stay awake past twelfth toll. What sort of adult _is_ she?

But the Fade calls, open-armed and waiting patiently in the wings. The roiling-lightning rain clouds that Bethany had stared at for so long earlier in the evening have cracked apart and begun to spill a fine, misty rain that darkens Alistair's hair to a dark golden-brown in the half-minute he's outside of the carriage.

"Are you coming, dwarf?"

"Hold your horses, Death Wish, I'll get there when I get there!"

Bethany giggles into the plush velvet seats. Varric never does anything by half. He's the only person in this entire palace that Bethany would trust to really be able to keep someone alive; not Ser Cullen. not Alistair, not even Bethany herself.

But that's the way Varric _is_.

She wouldn't want her sister's dwarf any other way.

When Alistair finally heaves himself into the carriage (and closes the door behind him, because he does have moments of pettiness), Bethany reaches for him without a second thought. A giddy rush of adoration pours over her when he settles down beside her without having to be asked.

"I love you," Bethany murmurs, sweet and dark as molasses.

Alistair slips himself into her cracks, folding them into one another so close that there's a hairsbreadth of space left between. He's so very gentle as he does this, nudging her forwards, left and right and up and over until Bethany is more on top of him than not, and he can hook his chin over her shoulder without a crick in his neck. They splay out in dark carmine comfort, drawing the curtains over the carriage windows for a momentary sense of privacy, and Alistair kisses her shoulder.

"The only thing I've wanted to hear all night, that."

"Mmm," Bethany hums. She wants him everywhere; she tilts her head to the side with a happy little sigh to let him put his mouth on her throat, next.

Alistair obliges her, in this.

Oh, she _loves_ him—

Varric opens the door, grins at the pair of them draped all over one another as they are absolutely _horribly_ , and then shouts over his shoulder, "That's four, Nightingale!"

" _Merde_!" comes Sister Leliana's faint reply, and then a stream of unintelligible Orlesian filth that cuts off rather abruptly when Varric settles himself on the opposite seat and kicks closed the door.

"How much money does she owe you?" Alistair asks in the same tone he'd use to ask about the weather outside, crooking an eyebrow. Bethany is too far-gone to pay this conversation the attention it deserves; she turns and tucks her face into her husband's throat.

"Enough that she's swearing about it," Varric says. He rubs his hands together, warding off the night's chill. "You two are always a good bet, and no one ever believes me."

Alistair snickers, rumbling all the way through Bethany's chest.

Oh, Maker, she could stay here forever. Tucked up against Alistair's side, warm all over, his pulse thudding away beneath her lips like keeping time. Varric's voice burbles; she can hear the crinkling of his eyes when he laughs. Or she could, except that that doesn't have a sound.

Soon they'll be moving, rattling towards the Frostbacks. Back to Skyhold.

Back to her babies.

It might have been better if they'd been able to talk quietly on the ride home, just the two of them. Bethany has so many things she needs to tell Alistair, but when _doesn't_ she have so many things that she needs to tell Alistair?

It's never-ending.

But—

Varric makes the carriage feel like they're already home.

And that makes it survivable.

Bethany keeps her face pressed firmly into the crook of her husband's throat, and allows herself to drift.

—

.

.

.

.

.

 _tbc_.


End file.
